


Birds of a Feather

by Lilly_White



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Aeris the chocobo whisperer, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Tseng and Aeris being pals, absolutely massive nerding out about chocobos, animal psychology, basically natural horsemanship transposed onto chocobos, it's kind of embarrassing really ha, traumatised animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9877799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_White/pseuds/Lilly_White
Summary: AU where Aeris is allowed to work at Chocobo Bill's farm, as a reward for good behaviour. She is still being surveilled by Tseng. Over time she learns how to fix problem chocobos, and ends up getting more customers than she bargained for - including a certain General and his traumatised bird.





	1. Chapter 1

                Sometimes, Aeris likes to sit in one of the chocobo’s stalls and listen to the sounds of barn life. The shuffling of talons in loose hay. The scraping of beaks against bucket bottoms. The clink of tack as riders carry their saddles out of the office and through the aisle. She eases back against the thin wooden walls of the stall, basking in the musty scent of hay and chocobo feathers. She can spend hours watching dust particles dancing in the sunlight. It’s so easy to forget her shackles here, in a place where the sun shines so bright.

She still doesn’t know how Tseng did it. Somehow, he managed to plead to the ShinRa board that she was too precious to waste away in the slums. The first time he explained to her that she had full range of the land north of the Midgarian mountains, she thought he was being funny. They used to play a game when she was little – he would tell her all about the places he visited, and she would insert herself into the stories. Just to pretend she was free. She told him it was cruel to play with her now that she was older. But on her sixteenth birthday, he strapped her into his helicopter, jammed ear muffs on her ears and took her for a ride to prove that he wasn’t lying. They flew over the vast green plains surrounding Kalm, surveilled the red roofs of Chocobo Bill’s farm, even hovered close to the misty swamplands near the mountains. Tseng shouted into his headset about the massive snakes that lived in that swamp, but Aeris’ heart was racing too much for fear. She absorbed the sights like she’d never leave Midgar a second time. It was too much of a stretch to believe that she’d ever be able to live out here.

Afterwards, she sat at her dining room table in Midgar while Tseng talked with Elmyra about relocating to Kalm. She spent the whole conversation staring wide-eyed out the window at the artificial slum daylight. To think they could be rid of the slums… that they could bask in real daylight, even bin all of their ShinRa-stamped vitamin D supplements. He went through the possible working positions he’d found for both women, and it seemed like a dream to even consider working in places that offered minimum wage and accommodation. Elmyra chose a flower shop in Kalm, thinking Aeris would follow her. But Tseng mentioned working as a hand at Chocobo Bill’s farm and something about it piqued Aeris’ interest. If she could be allowed to work somewhere, then a place in the middle of nowhere with no cities on the horizon sounded like heaven.

*

Once settled at the farm, she completed her year-long apprenticeship with flying colours. She spent her weekends in Kalm at first so that Elmyra would weather the separation a little better. Then, it was Elmyra who visited her. Seeing how Aeris threw herself into the work body and soul, it was preferable that she stay on full-time – she had quickly become indispensable to the business.

She couldn’t travel around to catch good birds like Chocobo Bill’s other stable hands, so she took charge of all the wild chocobos that were brought in. Breaking them, teaching them to trust their riders, feeding them up to get them race-worthy – that was what took up most of her time. The rest was spent caring for the boarders’ chocobos, most of them all sorts of exotic colours and coming from all over the world. She still remembers the first time she saw a black chocobo up close. Teioh. The racer who’d brought him in wore a cowboy hat, and addressed her as ‘ma’am’. Tseng had told her afterwards, about how he was a world-famous a racing champion, and she’d hardly dared to touch a feather on Teioh’s back again.

She did everything according to what Bill taught her at first, and after a few months of work she took matters into her own hands. ‘Breaking’ something’s spirit to achieve control over it just didn’t sit quite right with her. One day she asked Bill if she could go out and catch her own bird, just to see what they went through during the catching process. She saddled up Bill’s old B-class chocobo and rode to the areas surrounding the farm where wild birds roamed. According to Bill those birds weren’t worth anything except the feathers on their backs – there’d be hunters out there from time to time, loading up masses of the wild birds and taking them on a one-way trip to the butcher’s. Once Aeris found the herds, she kept an eye out for empty cattle trucks. She spent all day watching how the herd interacted. There was clearly a pecking order – two alphas at either end of the herd, a male and a female, regulating everyone else’s movements. The show of dominance wasn’t violent. It was all in body language. The alphas would lead, and the rest would choose to follow. Sometimes there were scuffles – birds pecking at each other with their wings flapping up a storm. But every time the battle was won, there was never any malice or cruelty from the victor. There were only suggestions shown through body language, and willing responses.

The chocobos always hustled up environing monsters for protection every time they sensed humans approaching. Aeris had her staff strapped to her back. She was ready for it. She came close to an angry-looking female surrounded by twiggy Mandragora, hopped off of her own bird and readied the materia in her staff. The battle brought to mind the countless encounters she’d had in the slums – the glowing eyes in dark alleyways, the fear singing in her veins. She set fire to the creatures, and the chocobo pawed at the ground as its protectors crumpled to the floor.

Bill had given Aeris a length of rope to catch the bird, so she did as she had practiced and threw a loop of rope over the bird’s neck. The chocobo fought and squawked at first, but Aeris didn’t pull or resist. She let the rope fly through her fingers, giving the bird space. Once it realised she wasn’t trying to pull it anywhere, it stayed still. Aeris walked one direction, it went the other. They mirrored each other for a moment, Aeris pouncing left and right, the chocobo following suite. They were building a clumsy alphabet of body language, and Aeris was smiling and panting by the time the chocobo perked its head at her curiously, the anger in its eyes vanishing. Aeris stopped several times and turned to the side, trying to get it to approach of its own will, but it only understood what she was trying to say after an hour of dancing. Aeris stood still for the nth time, looking away, mimicking the pose of the victors she’d seen earlier after a fight was won. She made herself smaller to rid her stance of all aggressiveness. After a few minutes of listening to the bird’s exhausted warbling, she heard talons pace across the grass and felt the chocobo butt its big round beak against her shoulder. She could’ve laughed out loud at the leap her heart made. She turned and scrubbed the bird between its eyes, then gently pulled the slipknot over its head.

 

She returned to the herd often to learn from their interactions. Bill let her, though he always reminded her of how useless it was to go and see those cool-bloods. He had a habit of judging birds for their racing and breeding potential rather than taking them as the living beings that they were. In the mornings, Aeris would talk to him about chocobo herd psychology over their usual coffee and porridge in Bill’s old farmhouse. Bill would swat away her propositions, saying she was just being overly sensitive. That is, until Aeris started fixing the hopeless cases.

*

It started with a radiant green male called Mako who spooked at forest wildlife. The owner came to Bill’s to park the bird there for breeding purposes. He owned a ranch in Kalm and offered trail-riding services for those who wanted to travel south of the mountain range. Apparently he was quite well-known in the area, with his stable full of supposedly dependable green birds. He wanted to cart Mako off to the butcher’s once he had a new hacking bird fresh out of the egg to replace him.

Aeris led Mako into an empty stall and watched how the bird shied away from loud noises. Even when she clanked the lock shut, he jumped to the back of the stall like she’d shot a gun in the air.

‘See?’ the owner said. ‘He’s like that all the time.’

‘Have you tried to fix the problem?’

‘Miss, I don’t have time for a hacking bird who’s scared of hacking,’ he said. ‘The world keeps turning and I lose money every time someone mentions how one of my birds took them on a wild ride when they tried to go south. I need good birds and this one’s just too crazy to bother.’

Aeris talked to Bill about buying the bird and taking it out of her meagre wages – she couldn’t stand the thought of such a beautiful animal being killed because of the owner’s impatience. Bill told her that green chocobos were a handful. They needed about as much exercise as race chocobos, since they were built for mountainous terrain. He took her into Mako’s stall, showed her the differences in physiognomy. The thicker, sturdier legs, the longer talons, the denser feathers. Aeris found the bird all the more beautiful for it, not to mention how exciting she found the prospect of working with an animal who needed the outdoors just as much as she did.

When the owner came to check on the great yellow female that Bill had found for him, Aeris did her best to sweet-talk him into a deal. The owner was still laughing when he signed the bill of sale for her.

‘That bird’ll kill you,’ he said. ‘Try to take him anywhere that isn’t as silent as a goddamn graveyard and he’ll bolt into next month. I don’t know if it’s the birds or the trees or the monsters – or his own damn shadow that he’s afraid of. He’s hopeless.’

‘It’s a question of guidance,’ Aeris said. ‘If he feels he can’t trust your leadership, then of course he’ll be scared of everything.’

‘Whatever you say, miss.’ The owner handed her the bill, and she took it with a smile.

‘Feel free to visit him any time you like.’

‘Yeah, hopefully you’ll still be in one piece when I do!’

 

When he visited a couple of months later, Mako was a different bird. With Aeris’ training, he’d become strong and confident. He followed her everywhere without her even touching the lead rope, and stood as still as a statue as soon as she did. The owner was flabbergasted. He stayed by the paddock fence as Aeris turned Mako out, and when she came back he asked her how she’d done it.

Patiently, she explained how she'd let him be with the others for a while, and spent time just playing with him and grooming him. Once he knew her presence didn’t mean work and scary things, she'd started taking him out with other birds. Only leading him along, not riding him. It was just a question of making him feel comfortable and protected. Once he understood who his alphas were, he was fine following her lead. And then there were the regular obstacle courses for desensitization, of course. Flappy sheets, dogs, water, gunshots – 'you name it, he’s over it,' Aeris said.

There were other things too, like the herbs and roots that Aeris would mix into Mako’s feeds to help him relax, or the meditations she did to try and connect with another child of the Planet, but she was worried that that would come across as a bit much. Still, the owner was impressed. He started sending her any problem birds he might have. And faster than Aeris would ever have expected, the news spread that there was a bird fixer at Chocobo Bill’s farm.  Demands to fix birds came from everywhere, from merchants to racers to ShinRa’s military-grade steeds.

*

Soon, Bill went from offering very limited pension services to fully-blown breeding facilities and entire barns full of problem chocobos that need fixing. There are now six connecting barns rather than just the one, three outdoor training rings, pastures extending all around, and even a levelled parking spot for airships. And Aeris – well, she still sleeps in the farmhouse, which is the only part of the farm that hasn’t been renovated. Aeris doesn’t mind. She prefers the creaky floorboards and dusty, moss-covered windows over any sanitized environment. She even had to fight against Bill to keep the old-world charm of the barns.

Tseng comes to check up on her every week. It’s been five years since she came out here and he’s never been late even once. Except for her birthdays, but that’s on purpose. She celebrated her twenty-first birthday with Bill and Elmyra this week, so as always he makes a point of bringing her a present a few days late. However friendly she might be towards him, he knows he has no place among her family. He knows that she doesn’t like to think of this life as temporary, and that he has always been a reminder of her true status as a ward of ShinRa. He hates how fearful she is every time she sees his crisp blue suit in the middle of her safe space. How tense she is until he confirms that he’s just here for a visit, and not for the fateful journey back.  

This time he finds her in Mako’s stall, treating the bird’s luxuriant tail feathers. Tseng stands outside for a moment, watching her. He looks at how tanned her skin is, how firm and muscular her arms have gotten. He swears that she’s grown taller since living out here, too. Her hair has turned almost blond with the amount of time she spends in the sun. She still wears it in a long braid, though she’s switched from big fancy ribbons to pragmatic hair-ties. He grins as she talks to her bird, calling him a good boy, and something about a trail ride they’ll be going on later. When she sees him, she breaks into a smile and pulls him into a rough hug over the stall door.

‘How’ve you been?’ she asks him. He inhales the scent of hay and mud that clings to her hair. They break away and she laughs about leaving dirt on his suit.

‘I heard somebody was growing old out here,’ he says. She comes out of Mako’s stall, brushing her hands against her dress.

‘Please tell me you didn’t bring me potted plants again. Bill is beginning to hate me for turning his farm into a botanical experiment.’

Tseng sighs. ‘Do you know how hard it is to get you presents, Aeris? I get you haute-couture dresses, you use them to go on trail rides through the Zolom swamps. I get you jewellery, you keep it all hidden away in boxes because you’ve always got your hands in bird shit. I get you books, you tell me you never have time to read – ’

‘It’s not that. You just have terrible taste,’ Aeris says, laughing.

‘Oh, is that it then? Thanks.’

‘You buy me detective novels. And I get that you might be interested in that sort of thing. But, Tseng – I left Midgar because believe it or not, it’s _nice_ to not be surrounded by stabbings and theft and arson all the time.’

‘Well, there’s nothing quite like a murder mystery to cure you of your homesickness,’ Tseng deadpans, and she laughs again. Laughter comes to her so easily now. It used to be like wringing blood from a stone, back when he checked up on her in Midgar. Out here it’s like she forgives him for all of it, and treats him like just another childhood friend. He’ll never admit it, but he’s becoming quite addicted to this easy friendship.

‘You know, if you just paid attention to the wish list I send you every year, it wouldn’t be that hard,’ Aeris reminds him.

‘Your wish list. Hmm. Let’s see.’ He starts ticking things off his fingers; ‘”Tseng, can I go to the Northern Continent on some dragon slaying mission with Bill’s other employees?” Let’s think. _No_.’

‘It’s not _dragon slaying_ , it’s necessary to get Carob nuts – ’

‘“Tseng, can I go to the Northern Continent all by myself to meet with some weird old hermit who lives up in the mountains?” Hmm. _No._ ’

‘It’s to get greens! Bill’s greens are fine but the best riders all use Sylkis, and no one will say where they buy it from. The sage is the only place I know – ’

‘“Tseng, can I go to the Golden Saucer to watch the races of such-and-such chocobo that I helped fix?” Well I don’t know. Let’s think. Does it involve travelling _beyond your set boundaries_ which is the _one_ thing I’m not allowed to grant you?’

Aeris punches him playfully. ‘Okay, okay, you don’t have to be so mean about it.’

‘Trust me, I would allow it if I could. It’s just difficult to organise an escort when it’s already inconvenient enough for them to dispatch me all the way out here on a weekly basis.’

‘Well I’m sorry to be such an _inconvenience_.’

Tseng pokes her in the ribs so that she doubles up.

‘No you’re not. Now stop your teasing and come with me.’

He leads her out of the barn and towards the landing pad, where his aircraft is sitting. It looks like a military shuttle, the kind that ShinRa uses to dispatch troops. Blue-clad Soldier grunts are guarding the loading ramp.

‘What happened to your helicopter?’ Aeris asks, shielding her eyes from the glaring afternoon sun. ‘Has Reno finally crashed it?’ 

‘Not quite yet. There wasn’t enough room for your present on my helicopter, so this was unfortunately necessary.’

Aeris stares at him, mouth parted as she tries to guess what he means. He returns her gaze coolly, the wind whipping his long black hair behind him.

A smile stretches her lips. ‘Gaia, what have you done now?’

He smiles back, and offers her his elbow. She loops an arm around his and lets him lead her over to the ship. He tells one of the grunts to ‘go and get it’, and the grunt disappears inside. Aeris fidgets, looking over her shoulder to see the other stable hands staring at the fancy modern airship.

‘I’m not sure if this counts as a present,’ Tseng mutters to her. ‘Only, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and I’m the one who suggested the collaboration. So I at least had _some_ involvement.’

‘What are you – ’

The sound of talons screeching and dragging against metal cuts her off. Aeris watches as two grunts lead a sumptuous black chocobo down the ramp. Her first thought is that Joe’s come back with Teioh – but even though this is the second time she’s seen a black chocobo in her entire life, somehow it’s obvious to her that this is a different bird altogether. The way it holds its head up high; the midnight blue shine to the feathers; the sharp, streamlined look. She can imagine it cutting through thick forests, head plunging forwards, wings out. The tail feathers jut out like daggers, and Aeris is almost afraid that the grunts will cut themselves on those glossy wings. Aeris reaches out just as the bird starts spreading its wings, flapping angrily at its carers.

‘Don’t pull on the rope!’ she calls to them. They still struggle against the bird as it rears its head, squawking shrilly. Its eyes are rolling frantically, so Aeris yanks the rope from one of the grunts and half-chases it down the ramp. Once on firm ground the grunts shout at her to be careful, but she lets the rope go slack as the bird spreads its wings out, shrieking at her and blocking out the sunlight. She stands tall, mirroring its movements. When it charges at her she dances out of the way, and chucks a strong ripple down the rope as punishment. The halter clatters around its head and it squawks in confusion, before letting rip another scream. Aeris holds out her arms and takes a bold step towards it. It dances away this time, flapping and twitching its tail feathers. They dance like this for a while, mirroring each other’s movements, Aeris freezing and turning away every time the bird stops or hesitates. Once it realises that comfort exists in the moments where it isn’t attacking her, the shrieks turn to confused warbles. Aeris steps towards its tail, sending it into a circle around her. It trots for a moment, dark eyes on her as it paces around her. She keeps her body positioned side-on so that it can mirror her. When she runs, it sprints. When she slows down and bends her knees, it lowers its tail and slows down too. Once it’s in a more responsive state, she comes to a stop. The bird digs its talons into the earth, nervously ripping holes in the ground.    

‘Nice present,’ she calls over to Tseng. The grunts have stayed at a distance from her – Tseng stayed back too, not wanting to aggravate the animal.

‘I knew you’d like her,’ he calls back.

She clucks her tongue at the temperamental bird and leads her to an empty paddock. Once she’s penned in, Aeris unclips the lead rope from her halter and the bird shoots off, throwing up clumps of earth as she goes. Tseng comes back up to Aeris, placing a hand on the small of her back.

‘Are you alright?’

‘I do this every day, Tseng. I can handle one foul-tempered chicken, however sharp its beak is.’

He all but snorts at that. They watch the bird sniff at the ground, her glossy black neck extending and retracting.

‘Her beak _is_ sharp, isn’t it?’ Aeris mutters. ‘I’ve never seen a chocobo with a hooked beak like that. The way her head is shaped… she looks almost like a raptor.’

‘Well, the mother and father were both from Wutai, hence the slight differences in type.’

‘What? But only Mideel and Golden Saucer chocobos have the recessive green and blue genes. You couldn’t provoke the appropriate breeding chain from Wutai’s stock.’

‘This chocobo wasn’t born from the traditional breeding chain. Back when Wutai was still independent, the imperial family had an ancestral herd of black chocobos. Pretty incestuously bred but considered a national treasure.’

Aeris stares at him. ‘I’ve never heard about this.’

‘It isn’t common knowledge. They were all confiscated by Shinra’s troops and used for the war. None of them made it except this one. Her particular breed is now considered extinct.’

‘Wow,’ Aeris mumurs, eyes trained on the bird as she ruffles her feathers, sliding her beak through one of her wings. ‘That’s so sad.’

The two ShinRa grunts meet up with them, holding papers and boxes. Aeris greets them and takes the papers, flipping through them. Most of them are about the bird’s medical history. She signals to the grunts as to where to put the boxes full of tack and feed. Then once they’re back from the barn they disappear back into the airship. The engines begin to whir as the ramp retracts. Tseng and Aeris stand out by the paddock and watch the airship lift up – the black chocobo screams as the airship soars above her. The other chocobos in the paddocks around her are calm, some of them playfully galloping in the direction of the airship. She marks a stark contrast with her head lowered to the ground and her wings shaking in sheer terror. Aeris fights the urge to run into the paddock and soothe her.

‘So why isn’t the owner here to tell us her story?’ Aeris asks Tseng.

‘Her owner is a very busy man, I’m afraid,’ Tseng says. He seems to be enjoying the suspense he’s creating far too much. Aeris smirks up at him.

‘Come on, who is it?’

‘She belongs to Sephiroth.’

Aeris goes white as a sheet.

‘No. No way. _The_ Sephiroth?’

‘Yes.’

‘But – I’m supposed to fix his bird? But what if I can’t fix her? Will he be angry?’

‘You’ll do just fine, I’m sure of it,’ Tseng says, snaking an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her against him. ‘Mr Deusericus was going to issue him another chocobo if this one proved to be too broken for military use. ShinRa tends to operate on a discard-and-replace basis, and I’m not the only one who disagrees with that policy, especially regarding living creatures. I happened to mention you to Sephiroth and he seemed more than happy to hand her over and see if you could work your miracle on her.’

‘You mentioned _me_ to _Sephiroth_ ,’ Aeris echoes.

Tseng laughs at her fondly. ‘He’s just a man, Aeris. If you can’t do it, there won’t be any grudges held. He’ll have to move on, and so will you. No pressure.’

Aeris holds onto the fence, looking at the black chocobo as she digs nervously at the ground again. She tries to imagine her saddled up in military tack, and Sephiroth sitting astride her. Riding through the dark Wutain jungles, slicing through enemy troops, her wings flaring. Aeris wonders how much of the war this bird has seen. How many fires? How many buildings collapsing? How much chaos has the General steered her through?

‘What’s her name?’ Aeris asks.

‘Six.’

‘Six?’

‘When they initially transferred the birds to the ShinRa military, they gave them all numbers rather than names. She must’ve had a Wutain name once, but it’s lost now.’

Aeris sighs, and gestures towards the farmhouse that’s nestled in between the barns up ahead.

‘Come on. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and you can tell me all about my cursed gift.’

*


	2. Chapter 2

Bill has long gotten used to Tseng’s presence around his farmhouse. He knows that Tseng isn’t just Aeris’ old custodian, despite what she and Elmyra keep insisting. Even family wouldn’t be so punctual in their visits. Bill has spent his whole life being wary of men in suits, but seeing how headstrong Aeris is about keeping the place drama-free, he doesn’t say a word when Aeris brings the man into his house. He just folds up his newspaper, nods at the both of them, and shows himself out.

Tseng sits at the kitchen table while Aeris prepares the coffee. There are miniature roses lining every window and a fresh bouquet of bougainvillea spilling on the table. Tseng smiles to himself. It smells just like Elmyra’s old house used to smell. Pollen and wet earth. He watches Aeris flipping cupboards shut with her feet, reaching for plug sockets while looking the other way. It’s like she’s lived here her whole life.

‘It’s harder to heal a bird when we can’t get the full story from the owners themselves,’ Aeris says while he watches her plunge a spoon into a big coffee pot. There’s mud all the way up her jeans, and one of her bra straps has fallen down her arm. He fights the urge to pull it over her shoulder. She does it herself as she switches the coffee machine on, and he smiles to himself again.

‘Sephiroth will never take time out of his schedule to come out here,’ Tseng says. ‘You have to understand, he’s indispensable to the running of the city, not to mention ShinRa’s whole mako empire.’

Aeris leans against the counter as the machine heats up in a series of bubbly hiccups.

‘Doesn’t he get any weekends? Paid leave?’

‘I’m not sure hanging out at a barn to get pecked at by an insane old bird would be his idea of a vacation.’

‘Oh then let me guess. He’s a Costa del Sol type?’ Aeris says with a smirk. Tseng has a sudden vivid image of Sephiroth in a flower shirt and sunglasses, sipping from a rainbow-coloured cocktail.

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Then what? It’s his chocobo, surely he enjoys spending time with her.’

Tseng shrugs. ‘The military don’t exactly have the same relationship with their mounts as hobbyists do. The birds have to be impeccably trained and in pristine condition at all times. Most of the sessions they spend with their animals are meant to be productive rather than sentimental.’

Aeris shakes her head. ‘I don’t buy that. Soldiers build some of the strongest bonds I’ve ever seen with their animals. It’s what allows the birds to be deathly still in the middle of a screaming crowd, or disciplined and well-composed even when the soldiers aren’t touching the reins. Being able to control an animal that’s so much stronger than you has always been hugely symbolic for them. If you can’t control your animal then how are you supposed to lead your men?’

Tseng grins at her. ‘I never thought you’d be so interested in the military.’

She smirks. ‘I’m not. I’ve just had some soldiers come through here and I noticed a few things. They all seem to be so proud of working for ShinRa.’

‘Well, why wouldn’t they be?’

Aeris lowers her chin, gazing at him like she’s about to mention all those conversations they’ve had about ShinRa’s shortcomings. It’s probably a breach of protocol to have inside-jokes with her concerning his own employer, but Tseng doesn’t care. The smell of coffee is slowly filling the room, and for a moment he watches how the sunlight catches the curly hairs around her face and he can’t think of any place he’d rather be.

‘Sephiroth can very well lead his men,’ Tseng says. ‘He can control his chocobo, too. The main reason she’s here at all is that he’s the only one who can control her. She’s extremely antisocial, and if he isn’t there to put her back in her place she can become very aggressive. It’s difficult to keep her anywhere without her harming the other animals or just generally making a mess. And she’s even becoming a handful for Sephiroth himself – she’s started refusing to board airships. These last few missions he’s had to have her heavily sedated to take her anywhere.’

Aeris nods thoughtfully. Once the coffee is ready she pours it into two mugs and hands him one. He gets up to take it and leans next to her against the counter. He’s itching to have a cigarette, but he knows better than to smoke in her territory.

‘Did anything happen to make her worse? A crash? Any kind of incident?’

‘No, not really. It’s just been a steady descent into madness.’

‘She’s not mad,’ Aeris corrects him automatically. ‘She’s just hurting over something and we’ve got to find out what it is.’

They sip their coffee for a moment before she goes on; ‘How long has he had her?’

‘Oh, about ten years I think. They got hold of the emperor’s herd back when he was seventeen, when the Wutai war was on its last legs. Just before they finally took over the Imperial palace.’

‘And she used to be well-behaved?’

‘She certainly seemed better behaved than now.’ Tseng sighs. ‘I’m sorry if I’m not much use here. Sephiroth could probably tell you more, I know. But you’re just going to have to work with what you’ve got. Try to earn her trust.’

‘I just hope she’s not going to be a problem for the other chocobos,’ Aeris says. She sips her coffee, her bright green eyes lost in thought. Tseng reaches to brush a curl away from her face, and she looks up at him.

‘I haven’t said happy birthday yet, have I?’ he murmurs, and she smirks.

‘Yeah, thanks a lot for the bird from hell.’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t appreciate the challenge.’

She huffs, then comes against him for a hug.

‘You know me too well.’

‘Just be careful around her, alright?’ Tseng kisses her on the forehead. ‘Your safety always comes first.’

*

The first time Aeris tries to catch Six to turn her in, she spends two precious hours dancing with her and cornering her with Six bursting out of her control at every turn. The other chocobos are staying well away from Six’s paddock – whenever they come close, Six lunges at them and shrieks her indignation. At one point three other stable hands join her to try and corner the bird, but Six only sees this as a blatant attempt to overpower her and charges them to break them up. By the end of their attempt, Aeris has a gash along her forearm and one of the lads has to be helped away, hobbling on his twisted ankle. Aeris refuses their help when they offer to bandage her wound. She’s breathing hard, standing alone again at one end of the paddock while Six waits at the other. The two girls stare at each other. Six paws the ground, then begins to charge. Aeris pushes down the urge to run out of there, and instead takes a step forward. Then another. The boys cheer her on and she’s running at Six, arms out, channeling all the energy she has left to try and cloak herself in a bristly, protective aura. Six stops just as they’re about to crash, digging in her talons. Aeris stops, too. She stands with her feet planted wide apart, showing Six that she won’t be intimidated. Blood courses down her wounded arm and onto the lead rope she’s holding, but she doesn’t notice. Six watches her with those fear-reddened eyes, blinking with both translucent eyelids. She cocks her head to one side, and then to the other. Aeris waits. Then she turns side on.

One of the boys chooses that moment to shout _yeah, Aeris!_ and Aeris steps back, her mouth going dry – but it’s too late. Six squawks at the sudden sound and lunges. Her beak hooks into Aeris’ arm again and Aeris yelps in pain. She violently waves at the bird to scare her away and Six pounces back. The boys come back into the paddock and bundle Aeris away, one of them remaining to rope the bird in.

‘Please don’t,’ Aeris shouts at him. ‘Don’t hurt her!’

‘He’s the best roper out here. Don’t worry.’

‘I almost had her, and you had to _yell –_ ’

‘Look, we should’ve just roped her in and tranquillized her from the beginning.’

Aeris watches from the other side of the fence as the roper hooks a loop of rope around Six’s neck, and another around her leg. Soon he has the bird stumbling to the floor, unbalanced, and he catches her head and sits on her in such a way that she can’t break free. Aeris hates the violence of it, how the roper is practically wrestling with her to get his way. He plunges a needle into the bird’s neck to sedate her, and Aeris rips away from them, marching back to the barn to work with the other birds.

It’s the same story every time they try to bring her in. After the first week, Aeris has scars up and down her arms but she refuses the boys’ suggestions to keep Six sedated at all times. She mixes up her usual herbs into Six’s feed, spends her nights outside of Six’s stall so that the bird can get used to her presence.  The other chocobos are restless around her, but Aeris doesn’t know whether isolating Six would do her more harm than good.

Bill keeps telling her that that bird is nothing but trouble. Aeris won’t have it. She’s never handled a bird quite like Six, and despite her worries she’s set on her mission. During the second week, Tseng comes to see her and finds her outside of Mako’s stall, sitting on a bale of hay and rubbing cream over her scarred arms. Mako chirps at the sight of the Turk, butting his big green head against Aeris’ shoulder to get her attention.

‘Any progress?’ Tseng asks. He takes Aeris’ hand and holds it up, staring at her fresh scars. ‘Oh dear.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Aeris says, though a blush steals over her cheeks. ‘Yesterday I managed to clip a lead rope on her and lunge her a bit. But taking her from her paddock to her stall is a nightmare, especially with the other grooms not keeping their distances. And all the customers are always milling around and being so bloody _noisy_.’ She sighs. ‘I just feel like she’s ignoring me on purpose. She understands but doesn’t want to communicate. She just wants to wall herself away behind her sadness and – ’

‘Aeris.’

Tseng holds out his arms, so she jumps off the bale of hay and steadies herself against him.

‘If she’s too much – ’

‘No, I can do it,’ Aeris snaps. ‘There’s just got to be _something_ that Sephiroth does to calm her down. I just wish I could get him to tell me what she responds to.’

‘He still won’t come down here, if that’s what you were hoping. At the moment he’s actually on an international reactor-check mission for the rest of the month, so there’s no chance that he’ll spare you even a minute. You’ve got to find another way.’

‘Maybe if you could just give me his phone number?’ She puts on her best forlorn look, placing her hands on his chest. ‘Please, Tseng?’

Tseng plucks her off him with a smirk. ‘That does _not_ work on me any more, Aeris.’

She smiles back. ‘Fine. Just – give me some more time.’

*

One night during the third week, Aeris wakes to the shrieks of the chocobos. She pulls on her boots and coat over her pyjamas and hurries out with a torch. The lights are on in one of the barns, and when she runs in there are already two other stable hands, tacking up their chocobos.

‘Six is on the loose!’ one of them shouts at her. Ice clunks into her belly. Without even thinking she grabs a halter and lead rope for Mako and goes to get him, leaping onto his bare back. The other stable hands meet her outside on their own chocobos, and they all decide on a direction to take. Aeris leans forwards and urges Mako into a gallop, heading south towards the swamplands.

She’s got her fire materia encrusted in one of her bracers, but she feels the absence of her staff against her back keenly as she plunges into the dim starlight. She tries to quell her fear as she guides Mako across the uneven terrain, shining her torchlight on the plethora of chocobo tracks ahead. Thankfully no monster runs as fast as a chocobo, but she still hears them swooping and snarling every time they cross through occupied territory.

She calls for Six until her throat is raw. After a while she can’t help wondering if Six even recognises that name. The darkness reminds her of her childhood, moments she would much rather have forgotten. Flashing lights in the dark, the feeling of being so utterly lost and alone. Would she respond to her specimen name? She tries to focus. The path to the swamp has always unsettled her, but now isn’t the time to surrender to fear.

The mists begin to coil around Mako’s feet and still there’s no sign of the wayward chocobo. She slows Mako to a walk and calls again. _Six!_ She shines her torch around her, revealing twisted trees and dead vegetation all around her. The chocobo tracks have all but run out. The swamp isn’t much further away, now. Mako gives a chirp as his feet start sinking into the ground, and Aeris rubs his neck.

‘It’s OK, boy. We’re gonna be OK.’

A few minutes of silent walking later Mako rears his head up, pointing his beak to the left. He gives a few confused chirps, and then a sings a greeting. Aeris looks in the direction he’s pointing. Nothing but darkness. And then, echoing in the silence – a response. It’s a chocobo call. Aeris leans forward, urging Mako in the direction of the sound. They clamber their way over soft terrain and through curtains of thin dead branches. Aeris is too excited at the prospect of Six being just around the corner to notice how the ground has turned to sloppy, watery mud. Mako sloshes his way through and Aeris calls again, hunching to get out of the way of branches. _Six!_ Again, the chocobo call resounds in the deafening silence, responding to her call.

There’s something else out there, too. Something big. Aeris feels it. She straightens up and Mako stops, responding to her shift of body weight. Both of them listen. It sounds like water lapping. Like something is disturbing the swamp ahead.

‘Oh, Gaia,’ Aeris whispers. Mako picks up on her fear and shifts his feet, warbling at her. ‘Good boy, Mako. Stay still.’ Aeris fishes her PHS out of her pocket. She calls Tseng, eyes and ears peeled as she waits for any other indication of company.

‘Aeris, it’s three in the morning,’ Tseng grumbles as a greeting.

‘I might be in a tiny bit of trouble.’

‘What is it?’

‘Six escaped and – I think she’s somewhere in the swamp. I followed her to the edge but – ’

Tseng’s voice loses all its grogginess. ‘Aeris. Turn back. Do not go in there, you hear me?’

‘She’s out there, Tseng. I have to help her.’

‘No. There are monsters in that swamp that you can’t take, Aeris. Please listen to me.’

‘OK. I’ll do what I can.’

‘I’m coming to pick you up. Stay away from the swamp, alright?’

‘OK.’

She leads Mako back to slightly shallower mud, and they slosh towards the earlier calls. Aeris hopes against hope that it is in fact Six and not some wild chocobo that got lost. Usually the wild herds never venture out here – they can sense what’s lurking in the deeper waters. It’s a testament to how much Mako trusts her that he’s allowing her to guide him through these parts. She can’t even begin to fathom why Six would come out here, though – surely it would go against her instincts of survival.

The wind is beginning to sound like whispering voices. Aeris tries to concentrate. Up ahead, she glimpses a glow of green light. She wonders if something in the mist is making her hallucinate. But no – the marsh ahead definitely looks like it’s pulsating with light. And the air feels warmer. Frowning, Aeris guides Mako over there. They hear another chirp cutting through the silence, and Aeris urges Mako into a trot.

 There are big ripples in the water, now.   

Mako trots into the glowing water, and Aeris feels warmth creeping up her legs. The voices rush past her ears – this is a lifestream leak, it has to be.

Mako squawks and the response is much closer this time. Aeris squints and sees a shape up ahead – a two-legged shadow. She tries to ignore her pounding heart and urges Mako towards the shape. Soon she glimpses tail feathers hanging low over the water, glinting in the green light. It’s a chocobo. It’s Six. Her relief is short-lived; how on the Planet is she going to be able to steer Six out of here?

 She brings Mako to a stop. The black chocobo ahead stops too. She looks so much like a shadowy mirage. Aeris can feel the pulsing stream beneath them. She tries to breathe out the fear, lets go of the halter rope and allows the coils of lifestream to travel up her arms. She thinks childishly for a moment, _mother,_ _why did you put such terrifying monsters here?_ The Planet doesn’t respond with words – it only gives her a heightened urge to escape. It’s telling her the same thing that Tseng did. _Get the hell out of there._ But she can’t leave Six.

She sighs again. She knows what to do. She hops off of Mako’s back, unclips the lead rope. The muddy water comes up to her thighs, but she perseveres. Six warbles warily as she approaches. Aeris holds up her arms.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she murmurs. ‘You’re lost. I’m here to protect you.’

Tendrils of lifestream extend from the chocobo to Aeris’ hands, and she feels a dream skittering on the edges of her consciousness. All it takes is for her to close her eyes, and she sees it. The jumbled mess of memories. It’s all a distant roaring chaos until she stabilizes her breathing and wills it to slow down. Scenes flash in front of her. Tall, dark-haired strangers in uniforms. A woman in a brocaded kimono and rich headdress. She is seeing them from the animal’s perspective. The feelings are primal, bursting in her chest. She loves that woman. She would kill for her. There are breathtaking landscapes, mountains and pagodas sweeping up into the sky. Constellations dotting the night. Fire arches through the darkness. Then the fire is everywhere. She sees demons cutting down everything she holds dear. She sees the woman in the headdress kneeling with her hands clasped in supplication. Something pulls her head – there are chains, barbed wire, her feet are hobbled. She is crying all the tears in her body. She is screaming all the air out of her lungs.

There is a demon who moves apart from the rest. He is the one who climbs on her back and leads her into the chaos. She is so lost. She fights back, but he steers her with a steady hand. His confidence gives her something to hold onto. He builds fires and summons warmth just like the woman could, and her fear evaporates as she huddles with him. Sometimes he sings to her, something that the woman used to sing. Aeris is propelled into a vivid memory of a campfire, strong hands stroking her neck, a low voice in her ear humming an ancient lullaby. The demon has silver hair tied up in a ponytail and blood streaks over his face. Everything about him screams predator, but she knows it’s better to be led by the devil than left all alone. By the time the chaos is over, he is the only one she recognises.

Aeris is ripped out of the memories by a splash of water. The ripples are beating down on them in earnest, now. She can feel tears on her cheeks, though she doesn’t know if it’s because of the dream or the terror that’s drumming in her chest. Six has bowed her head, almost laying her beak in Aeris’ hands. Aeris shrugs off her coat and reaches up to tie it around Six’s head in a blindfold.

‘I understand,’ Aeris murmurs to her. ‘I understand you’re afraid. But you’re not alone. I’m here for you.’

She ties the halter rope around Six’s neck, then clucks her tongue at Mako. The green chocobo splashes up to them, and Aeris swings up onto his bare back. She shines the torchlight behind her, and the white circle bounces over a humungous shape that’s moving towards them in the water. Aeris can’t breathe. She forgets her gentle aids and kicks Mako into a gallop.

They race their way back to firm ground, Six sticking close to Mako so that she can feel whenever he jumps or swerves around obstacles. Once they’ve put a safe distance between them and the swamp, Aeris hears the thrum of helicopter blades way above them. It hovers as though Tseng is asking whether she needs him to land, so she keeps galloping as a way of telling him that she’s alright. The truth is, she can’t stop. She knows the Zolom won’t have followed her onto firm ground but she can _feel_ it there behind her, blocking out the stars. 

 

Once she’s back at the barn, Bill and the remaining stable hands watch mutely as she leads Six back to her stall. One of them takes Mako from her so that she can concentrate on the black bird. Six warbles deep in her throat as Aeris shuts them in and unties her coat from around Six’s head. She spends the next few minutes standing close to the trembling bird, massaging the tension out of Six’s neck and wing muscles, trying to hum to her. She can’t remember the tune in the memories – it all happened so fast. Six stops trembling after about an hour of this treatment. Aeris’ arms are beginning to tire, but she’s staring sightlessly at the bird as she works, unable to shake the feeling of being chased. Then Six starts circling around as though preparing to lay down. Surprised, Aeris gives her space and the bird actually curls up in the hay right in front of her. This is such a huge display of trust that Aeris can feel tears springing to her eyes. She kneels and rubs her hands along the bird’s muddy neck as she’d seen Sephiroth do in the memories. Six gives an exhausted chirp and closes her eyes. Before long, Aeris leans against the bird’s warm body and loses herself in the downy softness as exhaustion crashes down on her, too.

She’s startled out of her nap by the creaky roll of a wheelbarrow. Groggily, she straightens up. The barn is awash with white sunlight. It must be early morning if the stable hands are beginning to muck out the stalls. Six gives a sleepy warble as she feels Aeris moving, so Aeris smiles and bundles her coat by Six’s beak so she can have Aeris’ scent. Then she gets up. She needs to see if Tseng is still around and thank him for coming.

 She finds him in the kitchen, pacing around with a mug of coffee, phone against his ear. He gives her a glare that says, _stay right where you are, I’m not done with you._ She hangs her head and obediently hovers by the table.

A few minutes later he snaps his phone shut and turns to her.

‘What the _hell_ were you thinking?’

He does not seem very happy with the night’s events.

‘She escaped,’ Aeris says tiredly. ‘With all the chocobo tracks around the farm it’s impossible to track a wayward bird. We had to take separate directions – ’

‘And you took it upon yourself to choose the most dangerous one?’

It’s her turn to glare at him. ‘I have more battle experience than the stable hands. I can handle myself.’

‘You can’t, not against a Zolom snake. This isn’t the slums, Aeris. It’s more dangerous than you know out there. Why do you think the board won’t give you more ground than this? They don’t want to put you in danger.’   

He’s always using the ShinRa board to cover up his own fear. She looks at his smooth blue suit, his impeccably tied tie even with how rushed his journey must’ve been. He’s good at pretending to be in control. She shakes her head, too tired to fight back.

‘I think I definitely broke some ground with Six, though. Did you see how calm she was?’

Tseng gives an impatient _tch_.

‘It was a stupid idea to give you that bird.’

‘No, she’s amazing. She’s clearly extremely intelligent, only she has no idea how to bond with someone without hurting them.’

Tseng smirks. ‘Sounds like animal and owner aren’t so different.’

‘I think she ran away because she wanted to be saved,' Aeris says slowly. 'She wanted someone to prove their worth to her by saving her. I’ve never come across such self-destructive behaviour in a chocobo before, but – I can’t think of any other reason why she would’ve gone to the swamp. Unless she was just so lost and afraid that it was sheer desperation.’

‘Wouldn’t it be more plausible for her to have been trying to find her owner?’

‘If that were the case then why didn’t she go back towards Midgar? Since that’s what she’d associate Sephiroth to, right?’

Tseng sighs. ‘I don’t know. They’ve been all over the world together.’

There’s a small silence. Aeris doesn’t even have to say it for Tseng to understand just how difficult it is to do this job without Sephiroth’s guidance. He sighs again. Then he slides a hand into his inside pocket, takes out a pen and one of his business cards. He bends over the table and starts writing.

‘Look. You only call when the situation is threatening to become dangerous. He’ll understand when I tell him just how much danger his goddamn bird has already put you in.’

Aeris’ breath catches in her throat as she realises what he’s doing. Tseng slides the card over to her with a phone number scrawled on it. She stares at the card dumbly.

‘He should be free to take calls during his lunch hours.’

‘You mean – I can actually ask him directly?’

‘Well I doubt he will have hauled his secretary along if he’s spending the entire month in military trucks and dingy hotels.’ Her smile has gotten far too big so he wags a finger at her and adds, ‘I’m trusting you not to abuse the privilege.’

She gets up and latches onto his neck before he can say anything else.

‘Thank you, Tseng!’

*

It takes about ten minutes of pacing around and another ten minutes of talking at herself in her bedroom mirror before she’s ready to pick up her phone. She sits on her bed, Tseng’s card in one hand, mobile in the other. Her heart is racing. She never would’ve imagined having such close contact with someone as famous as him. She checks the clock again – Tseng said between twelve and one. It’s two minutes past twelve. It should be fine. She swallows and says _Hi, this is Aeris Gainsborough from Chocobo Bill’s farm_ for the hundredth time. Then she dials Sephiroth’s number. _Sephiroth’s_ number! She imagines it vibrating against his thigh. His fingers picking it out of his pocket, pressing it against his ear under the long silver hair. The phone being warm from his body heat. It feels unreal. She closes her eyes, bites her lip and presses Call.

It takes several excruciating seconds for him to pick up. Her heart almost fails her when the line clicks open.

‘Hello?’

‘H-hello? Uh. Can I speak to Sephiroth?’

‘Speaking.’

Shit. Of course it’s him, this is his mobile number. Aeris goes beet red.

‘Hi. Uh. This is Aeris – from Chocobo Bill’s farm? I’m working with Six.’

‘Oh, right. Tseng mentioned that you’d call. What can I do for you?’

Gaia. He’s the perfect gentleman. His deep purr of a voice makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She crunches Tseng’s card in her fist as she battles her beating heart.

‘OK. So, I’ve been working with Six – ’ _You said that already, you nitwit! ‘ –_ and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.’

‘I don’t have too much time but I’ll tell you what I can.’

‘Great. Uh. So. Can you tell me when the problems started, and what might’ve caused them?’

‘The loading problem started three months ago. Right after I got back from a mission in Gongaga. The reactor there exploded while we were airborne at a small distance from it.’

‘OK. That sounds like a probable cause.’

‘It shouldn’t be. She was used to riding in unstable aircraft in the middle of Wutai bombings – not to mention how impervious she used to be to gunfire and firaga spells. It doesn’t make sense for her to have suddenly started spooking now after all she’s been through.’

‘Right. Um. And the aggressiveness?’

‘She’s always been temperamental. I trust Tseng took you through our history?’

‘Yeah. Yes.’ Aeris clears her throat. She’s got to get back into thinking mode instead of this girlishness. ‘He told me you’re the only one that she behaves for.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever tried to fix the antisocial problem before sending her to me?’

‘It was never really a problem for me. It just inconvenienced the others.’

‘So you never thought about getting to the root of it.’

‘In case you might not have noticed, I have more important things to think about than one temperamental bird.’

Something about that off-handedness breaks the famous-person charm that Aeris had been under. She hunches her back, frowning.

‘So you’re saying you rarely have time for her at all?’

‘She isn’t exactly a pet. There are requirements she needs to fulfill if she’s to remain in my property and I don’t have time for the kind of training she needs. That’s the root of the problem. She just needs proper training.’

‘I’ve worked with military birds before, sir. I understand. How much time do you spend with her on average?’

She hears him sigh. ‘It depends what kind of mission we’re on. Sometimes I can be out trekking with her for an entire month, other times she’ll stay in Midgar while I’m away.’

‘And would you say your busy schedule affects your bond with her?’

‘Look, I don’t see how this is relevant. I can’t change my schedule for the sake of a bird. If I had time to fix her myself I wouldn’t have paid you to do it.’

His tone has gone cold and clipped. Aeris finds herself tapping into the usual patience she uses on difficult clients.

 ‘She’s a living being, not a robot. It’s not just a question of fixing her wiring. Animals have associative thinking patterns just like we do. It won’t change much for me to gain her trust when you’re the one she needs to bond with.’

‘With all due respect, I think I know how birds work, ma’am. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?’

She shakes her head. He’s actually kind of rude. Very rude. She tries to run down the list of questions she’d mentally prepared, wanting to end this phone call as fast as possible.

‘One last thing, yes.’ She tries to wrap it up as much as she can so he won’t be suspicious; ‘If there’s anything you used to calm her down with, I’d love to hear about it. Some birds respond very well to singing, for instance. Or certain smells or small habits you might’ve had.’

He’s silent for a moment. Aeris wonders if he’s remembering the things that she saw. How heavily those memories must weigh in his mind.

‘I’ll try and think of something.’

‘Oh. Great. Thank you.’

‘Good luck.’

The line goes dead.

*

The real problem is now very clear in Aeris’ head. She won’t be able to make any lasting progress with Six unless Sephiroth comes to work with her and changes his attitude. She pesters Tseng with messages, trying to see what kind of excuse they could use to haul Sephiroth over, but Tseng only reminds her that it’s already a big enough privilege to have the man’s number.

Trying not to let her frustration show, she begins working on desensitization exercises with Six. The chocobo has become possessive about her newly elected alpha. She pecks and shrieks at anyone who comes near Aeris, and she’s still awful around other people’s chocobos. Aeris begins by taking her out on walks with Mako to get her used to another bird. Six doesn’t seem to mind him too much. Using positive reinforcement every time Six shows herself to be sociable, Aeris manages to get her to share a paddock with Mako and stop pestering at least the other stable hands. The desensitization to sound follows.

She starts small. Flapping plastic sheets, branches. Six mostly just raises her head and stares at Aeris like she’s saying, _you don’t seriously think this affects me?_ She butts her head against Aeris, chases her playfully when she’s had enough of the exercise. Aeris moves on to bigger things. She cracks whips, throws firecrackers around, shoots a gun into the air. Six is startled at first, and then takes it as a game, darting left and right. Curiosity sparkles in her eye every time Aeris comes back from a trip to the barn. Once she shows that she’s responding playfully rather than fearfully, Aeris teaches her to stand still while the noises crackle around her at random intervals. The chocobo stands tall in the middle of the field, statuesque with her head high and tail feathers spread out. Aeris can’t help seeing her in a battlefield. She can hardly imagine a battlefield, really – she just imagines a bombed street, the kind of emptiness she’d find in abandoned sections of the slum junkyard. She’s burning with curiosity to see Six tacked up. Never mind that – she’s burning to see Sephiroth on her back.

 

Two weeks after the phone call, Sephiroth still hasn’t given her a single shred of help. Six has been in her care for over a month now, and every day spent without her client only heightens Aeris’ frustration towards him. _I have more important things to think about than one bird_. No wonder Six feels abandoned.

Aeris’ PHS beeps while she’s stacking twigs in the middle of Six’s paddock. Six is pacing around her, squawking and knocking her beak against the branches. Aeris checks her phone, sees one new e-mail appear among the twenty-seven others. She goes back to her work. She can’t afford to let herself be distracted by the mountain of work and new clients that await her. Once the pit is ready, she gets up and puts an arm around Six’s neck, scrubbing her downy feathers.

‘It’s going to be alright,’ she murmurs. She keeps talking in a soothing voice to the bird as she sends a small fire spell at the branches. The fire starts crackling, and Aeris feels Six tensing up as soon as the smell of smoke reaches them. Six warbles a few times but otherwise stays with her. Mako paces lazily up to them just to see what the fuss is about. Once the flames start growing in earnest, Six starts pawing at the ground, chirping and rolling her eyes. Aeris removes her arm, and the bird immediately rushes to the corner of the paddock. Aeris sits by the fire, pats the ground next to her so that Mako sits by her side with a huff. She spends half an hour there with Mako, glancing at Six as the chocobo stays resolutely by the fence. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t come close straight away – at least she’ll know that fire doesn’t necessarily mean pain. Aeris gets up, douses the fire and hugs both chocobos before going back to the farmhouse.

Once in her room, she strips down to her underwear while listening to the voice messages she has. Two requests to go to the Golden Saucer… one asking if she teaches how to handle birds… four new clients asking to park their problem birds at the farm. She makes a note of them all in her logbook, then sits on her bed, unwinding her braid with one hand and opening her emails on her PHS with the other. She yawns as she clicks through the first one. Bla bla bla, chocobo races again. She clicks the second one open.

Sephiroth is in the sender’s address. She snaps awake. The e-mail is titled ‘This might help’. There’s an audio file attached and just Sephiroth’s formal email signature, with his name and status and digitalized signature. It’s the most impersonal e-mail she’s ever received, and she’s once again annoyed at how careless he is about the whole thing, not even bothering to write her a hello or a single line of context. She takes her earphones out from her bedside table drawer, muttering, 'Yes I’m doing very well, thanks for asking _.'_ She plugs them in, and plays the audio file.

There’s a second of silence, and then a deep hum fills her ears. She straightens up. The melody is slow and bittersweet, with a distinctly Wutain succession of notes. Goosebumps prick her skin as she listens. It feels like he’s right next to her, humming in her ear, and she’s sitting there in her _underwear_ – she reaches for her duvet and wraps it mindlessly around herself, blushing as his deep voice repeats the theme. Every now and then there is a pause, an intake of breath, the slightest sound of his lips unsticking. She smiles self-consciously to herself, and forces herself to listen to it a few more times. She’s reached the fifth replay when she lays down on her back, closing her eyes as she commits the beautiful song to memory.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's writing massive chapters again for something that was ONLY MEANT TO BE TWO CHAPTERS LONG /tears out hair  
> Thanks for reading!

It rains hard the next two days. Six spends most of her time cowering in her stall. Aeris finishes work with another chocobo and comes to see her during lunchtime on the second day. She lets herself into the stall, kneels down next to the big black bird shivering in the hay. Feeling a little silly, Aeris starts to hum. After the first few notes Six goes completely still. Then she lifts her head slowly. There’s something terribly sad in the bird’s eyes, and Aeris feels like it isn’t her place to sing this song. Aeris reaches up to stroke her cheeks, and Six warbles softly. Then she lays her head in Aeris’ lap, and Aeris presses circles into the space between her eyes as she keeps humming.

After a while, someone appears at the door of the stall. Aeris looks up to see Mei, one of her recurring clients, leaning against the door. Her black hair is tied up in a bun, and her usually cheerful expression has gone quite melancholic. 

‘Where did you hear that song?’ Mei asks.

‘A client showed it to me, he said it used to calm Six down. Why?’

Mei gives her a wistful smile. ‘My grandmother used to sing that to me.’

Aeris sits up. Mei is Wutain and she is an idiot for not connecting the dots.

‘It’s weird, though,’ Mei says. ‘It’s an old folk song, so unless you grew up there I can’t see how anyone would know it. Is your client from Wutai?’

‘No,’ Aeris says, and then feels the dread pulling down her insides. _No, he must’ve heard it in the prison camps, or the towns he captured._ ‘I suppose he learned it from Six’s previous owner.’

Mei takes a breath, and begins to sing. She adds words to the melody, her voice adopting the slightly nasal quality of traditional Wutain singing. Aeris listens, heart aching at the loss that the song evokes. Six has opened her eyes, enjoying the song just as much. Mei gets to the end of it, lingering on the final note for a few long seconds, and Aeris claps.

‘It’s even lovelier with the words. What is it about?’

‘It’s about an emperor who couldn’t speak,’ Mei says. ‘He had a stammer, so out of pride he refused to let anyone hear him talk. It’s basically about the different things he misses as he clings to his pride. His wife asks him whether he loves her. He can’t. His people need to be reassured during a long period of famine. He can’t. His daughter gets captured by an enemy clan and the only way to reclaim her is to parley. He can’t. And then it ends with the consequences. His wife takes her own life. His people begin a rebellion. The last part is him finally speaking to spare his daughter’s life, since she’s the only thing he has left.’

 ‘And he gets her back?’

‘We don’t know. It ends there.’ Mei drums her fingers on the stall door. ‘Historically we do have a few emperors whose wives committed suicide, but it’s always difficult to track these things down.’

Aeris thinks on the song for a moment, and then has an idea.

‘Could you do me a huge favour?’

‘Hey, thanks to you I have four chocobos in S class. Ask away.’

‘Could you possibly write the words down for me, along with a translation? I’d love to learn it properly.’

Mei gives her a big toothy grin. ‘Give me half an hour.’

 

Aeris sits in her bedroom that night, her laptop open in front of her. She’s got an email open with the words and translation all written up. She keeps deleting the audio file she’s attached and then reattaching it. It took several tries for her to record herself singing the full song without faults, so he’s going to listen to it whether he likes it or not. Besides, her singing voice isn’t _that_ bad – and he needs to hear how the words trace over the melody. She reads the translation over a few times, wondering if it won’t come across as too passive-aggressive to send it to him. Then she writes a few lines of context:

_Good evening,_

_Thank you for the song. A Wutain client of mine recognized it. Thought you might be curious to know the words._

_Six is making a lot of progress. She can stand still through most of the noisy exercises I have her do, and she hasn’t tried to peck anyone’s arm off in a good week. She’s sharing her paddock with my own bird and seems far mellower than when she arrived. I’ve begun to work on fire with her. Will keep you informed.  
Hope all is well for you._

_– Aeris._

She waits for about an hour, refreshing her emails, but he doesn’t reply. He’s probably far too busy or just uninterested altogether. Sighing, she closes her computer and gets to bed. Chances are he’s far too insensitive to even understand how the song could relate to his own situation, anyway. She breathes in the dark for a moment. Then, like the previous night, she reaches for her earplugs. As insensitive as he is, he _does_ have a lovely singing voice.

*

Three weeks after he sent the song, Six can stand next to a fire pit without so much as a nervous chirp. Aeris can cast fire spells all around her without her even blinking. But the storm returns, raging for days, and Six can’t handle it. Aeris decides it’s time to tackle the problem.

It’s nighttime on a Friday. Thunder is still rumbling outside. She spent the day with a race bird, listening to young racers talking among themselves about how amazing the Golden Saucer is, and how the Northern Continent is the best place to catch race-worthy chocobos. She doesn’t realise how long she’s spent grinding her teeth until Bill teases her about it. She tries to relax as she takes her lightning and shield materia and heads for Six’s stall. Her mind is full of photos she’s seen, vivid images of all the things she’s missing out on. All the places she will probably never get to see. She hungers for the whole world sometimes and tonight the hunger is welling in her eyes, lodging in her throat. She grips the green crystals and opens the stall door.

She clips a halter lead onto Six and leads her to the training ring that is furthest from the paddocks. The bird’s talons sink into the wet sand, and Six stares at her forlornly as the rain beats down on her feathers. In minutes she’s turned into a shiny ball of disdain. Aeris casts an Mbarrier spell on the both of them. She stands in the centre, breathing slowly as she channels her magic. The deeper she breathes, the further it unravels down her spine. She closes her eyes and raises her hands.

Lightening erupts outside the ring. Six jumps and squawks, staring urgently at Aeris as though she can’t see the danger. Aeris runs her hand down Six’s sopping neck.

‘You’re safe,’ she says firmly. ‘You’re safe with me. Good girl.’

The next lightning bolt strikes a patch of sand, turning it into a plume of hard crystal. This time Six jerks away, pulling at the halter rope. Aeris lets the rope slacken, but the bird steps back up to her, understanding the exercise. She warbles warily in her throat. Aeris strokes her again.

‘Good girl.’

Aeris rips electricity from the sky again and again and the bird bravely stands her ground, visibly fighting against her instincts as the bolts strike closer together. Soon it’s like the storm has centralized over their little circle of sand. Aeris’ hair is sticking to her face as she looks up at the heavens. Six is next to her, shivering but immobile. The white tendrils of light coil all around them, snapping sand up into solid arches so that a steadily growing army of misshapen creatures seems to surround them.

She doesn’t see him come up to the fence. She’s panting with magical exertion, building a crescendo as she holds her hands up and tears down successive lightning bolts all around them. Six warbles and Aeris thinks it’s fear, so she turns to stroke her neck after the last bolt has struck. When she looks over the bird’s head, her mouth goes dry.

He’s just a figure by the fence at first. For a moment she wonders who would be crazy enough to come out in a storm like this – the stable hands used to enjoy watching her perform magic, but now they’re too used to it to brave bad weather for it. Then she sees the hair turned silvery grey with the rain, and there can be no doubt.

He’s actually here. Now. The Demon of Wutai, climbing over the fence and approaching her.

'Are you trying to fry my bird?' he shouts over the din of the storm.

'It's a desensitization exercise,' she shouts back. He's too busy wiping water from his face for her to see if he's joking.

He’s looming next to her in seconds. She sees pale skin and intense eyes and instinctively moves away. Shit. He’s attractive. _Really_ attractive. Six sings her recognition and rubs her head against her master’s chest and Aeris tries her hardest to emulate the bird’s confidence. He looks completely unconcerned by the storm as he rubs his bird’s head with his bare hands. Aeris just watches him stupidly for a moment, her heart lurching at the proximity they’re sharing.

‘Don't worry, I recognised the exercise,' he assures her. 'Can you not summon several bolts at a time?’ 

‘My materia isn’t high-level enough.'

He holds up a hand, and she sees the materia-encrusted bracer he’s wearing. In the next second it’s like a wall of light has crashed down around them. Thunder booms and Six flinches violently, but she stays put. Aeris is torn between watching him perform and watching how the light writhes like a nest of snakes above them. She can feel her skin tingling with the static.

He turns to look at her. His eyes actually glow turquoise. She understands his nickname a whole lot better with how the colour reflects on his wet cheeks.

‘Do you want to try?’ he asks.

‘What?’

He pops a green crystal out of his bracer and hands it to her.

‘You seemed very much at ease with yours. Show me what you can really do.’

‘I thought you _didn't_ want me to fry your bird.’

‘You used Mbarrier on her, yes?’

‘Yes, but – ’

‘Then show me.’

He’s clearly used to enforcing orders. Heart pounding, she takes the materia from him. They both have a hand on Six’s neck as she taps into the materia. The energy of it fills her body with heat. It’s a mastered piece. She’s never even held one in her hand, let alone used one. She dares to summon the spell, and the sky all but falls down on their heads. She leans against Six once it’s done, blinking slowly – she’s completely drained.

‘Not bad,’ Sephiroth shouts. ‘I’m sure you can do better.’

‘I think Six has had enough for one session,’ she shouts back. He nods. She automatically grabs Six’s lead rope, and they both head out of the ring and towards the barn. Once they’ve gone inside, Aeris hands the rope to her client in order to slide the massive barn door shut for the night. When she turns around again Six is parading around her master, knocking her beak against him and flapping her wings. Sephiroth vaguely bats her head away at first and then holds up one finger. Aeris watches incredulously as Six all but stands to attention, like a toy reeling back to factory settings. Wings in, neck straight. Not a peep escapes from her beak after all that happy chirping.

'I take it you're Aeris, then?' he inquires.

'That's me. Nice to meet you.'

'Likewise.'

Aeris thought she’d give them some privacy, but it doesn’t seem like Sephiroth is interested in fuzzy reunions – not to mention the man is completely soaked. She should at least play the host and get him something to warm up. As she looks at him she realises quite suddenly that he’s wearing a soaked black shirt and it’s clinging to him in ways that are _far_ too interesting. She walks ahead briskly. She better not be blushing.

‘This way, please.’

Sephiroth tilts his head almost imperceptibly and Six breaks her static to follow him. They store Six away in the stall, and Aeris takes one of the feathery woolen blankets from the door.

‘You sure picked the right night come here,’ she says as she opens it up for him. He eyes the downy feathers clinging to the wool for a moment, and then wraps it around his shoulders. 'I'm happy you finally decided to come, though.'

‘Thank you.'

Aeris grabs another blanket and enters the stall to pat Six down. Sephiroth stays outside. The weight of his gaze on her is making her hair stand on end as she rubs the bird’s neck. It’s still so surreal that he’s here at all.

‘You’re quite handy with materia,’ he states.

Aeris makes an embarrassed noise. ‘I shouldn’t have gone that far. Six is still getting used to lightning.’

‘How is the fire coming along?’

‘Oh, I can throw fire spells around now and she doesn’t flinch. There’s hardly any problem there any more.’

‘We’ll have to try with a master-level there, too.’

She looks up at him, unable to hold in her excitement. ‘You have one on you?’

He holds up his jewelled wrist. ‘It’s custom for us to wear all the elements in case of enemy resilience.’

Her smile reaches her ears. No – she shouldn’t appear too eager, she’ll scare him away. She tries to veer back onto a more formal tack:

‘Great. We can do that later. Are you on a break, then?’

‘Yes. I have a few weeks. I thought I’d check in.’

‘To be honest I figured you spent your free time doing more interesting things than hanging out at a chocobo barn.’

‘Well, you’ve had Six for close to two months now. I thought I’d come to see her progress rather than just rely on Tseng’s reports.’

Aeris glances up at him. He’s coiling his hair into a sopping rope, picking it away from his cheeks. She suddenly feels hyperaware of her own body as he gazes down at her.

‘We’ll have to wait for the storm to die down before I can show you much.’

‘You’ve shown me plenty already,’ he says. ‘If I’m perfectly frank I didn’t think you’d be able to approach her at all, let alone work on her noise problem. Seeing her out there in the storm was a very pleasant surprise.’

Well that was… rude. Maybe he doesn’t realise he’s being rude at all, seeing the pleasant expression he’s wearing. She smiles politely.

‘I haven’t worked on the airship loading yet,’ she says. ‘That’s the next step. I don’t know if I can give her back to you until we’ve tackled that.’

‘That’s fine. I wasn’t expecting to take her back right away.’

There’s a small silence as she rubs Six’s wings, the bird warbling happily at having her two alphas in the same space. Then Aeris finally asks the question that’s been on the tip of her tongue ever since they came into the barn;

‘I’d understand if you were just passing through, but – now that you’re here, it would be really great if you could help me out.’

Sephiroth drums his fingers on the stall door for a few seconds.

‘I’m really not sure,’ he admits. ‘Tseng told me it would be important step of the training process for me to see her, but… what would the ‘help’ entail, exactly?’

‘More exercises like that one. Trail rides to keep her fit. You’re her alpha – she needs to associate safety with you.’

Sephiroth breathes out slowly.

‘Like I told you over the phone, I’m not sure what type of benefit she’ll get from me being there when we spend so much time apart in normal circumstances. She needs to learn to behave when I’m away.’

  ‘The thing is, she’s very high-maintenance,’ Aeris tells him. ‘Unless you change your schedule to include her more, then the only way for her to behave is if she bonds with the person who cares for her while you’re gone.’

‘Well, she’s done that already, hasn’t she?’

Sephiroth gazes straight at her and Aeris feels her belly tightening. It’s so hard to hold his gaze. She gets up, dusting her hands on her thighs before remembering that her jodhpurs are soaking wet.

‘Do you want to go to the farmhouse so we can warm up?’ she offers. He accepts. She gives Six a parting caress before heading off.

While they walk, Aeris addresses his implied offer;

‘If you’re offering me a job in whatever Midgarian stable you’ve got her at, I’m going to have to refuse. I wouldn’t set foot in Midgar again if I were offered a million Gil.’

‘Well, it isn’t exactly the warmest of places,’ Sephiroth agrees. ‘I understand that you’re a ward of ShinRa yourself, as you’re enjoying the same surveillance benefits as I am.’

‘Surveillance benefits,’ Aeris echoes with a wry smile. Tseng did tell him a lot about her, then.

‘Tseng isn’t the worst shadow to have.’

‘Can’t really disagree to that. He can even bake a half-decent cake on occasion.’

A grin appears on the corner of Sephiroth’s mouth. ‘You used to live in Midgar, then?’

Images of run-down train stations fill her head. She wonders just how much Tseng told him about her. Perhaps he told him just enough to pique the man’s interest and persuade him to come down here. However much he divulged, she’s just glad it worked.

‘It was a long time ago.’

They step out into the rain and break out into a jog to reach the farmhouse. Aeris opens the front door and lets Sephiroth precede her. Bill has retired for the night as it’s gone ten, but the hearth is still glowing with a warm fire. Sephiroth stays in the entrance, waiting for Aeris to lead the way to the fireplace.

They stand for a while, warming their hands. She keeps stealing glances at him, wondering what kind of bizarre sequence of events led to this particular man being in her living room tonight.

‘You live there now, don’t you?’ she asks him. The firelight glows on his face as he stares down at it.

‘I do.’

‘Why live there at all, when you have the freedom to go absolutely anywhere?’

He smiles.

‘I travel enough for it to be bearable.’

She pounces on the implication. ‘If you want to stay here to help me out instead of journeying back to the city every night, we do have room for lodgers. Three rooms, in fact. The biggest one should be available for the next few days.’

He stands there thoughtfully for a moment, so she adds, ‘I know it’s probably not the kind of luxury you’re used to, but…’

‘I don’t care for luxury.’

‘OK. Well, that’s perfect then. I can show you upstairs, I’ll have to make the room ready but – ’

‘Just – can you stop for a minute, please?’

She waits, cheeks flushing.

‘It’s just…’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m aware of how this sounds, but… I’m not used to acting on frivolous impulses. Coming here at all was already quite the whim.’

‘Impulses are fine. You’re on a break. You can do what you like.’

He glances at her.

‘The first problem would be clothes.’

She smiles. That means he’s caving in.  

‘Oh, we’ve got tons of spare riding gear. If you don’t mind wearing second-hand things, you can borrow from the pile.’

He thinks on this and then adds, ‘I suppose the accommodation isn’t free?’

‘No. But it’s very affordable. Especially compared to Midgar hotel prices.’

‘Anything is affordable compared to that,’ he retorts. ‘And food-wise?’

‘It’s all included. We’re stocked up on food if you’d rather make your own meals than eat with Bill and me. Six barns full of chocobos means breakfast is at the crack of dawn.’

‘Oh, I’m quite used to early hours.'

She stands there wringing her hands, imagining _him_ sitting at the breakfast table with her and Bill. Does he even get bed-hair? She’s biting her lip, trying her damnedest not to smile.

‘Alright,’ he says at length. ‘If I agree to stay one night, can I at least use your shower?’

He picks at his sodden shirt to make his point. Aeris laughs.

‘Of course. Yes. I’ll show you where it is.’

She leads the way up the creaky staircase and across the landing. Her and Bill’s rooms are on the left, the guests on the right. The bathroom is at the far end. She’s so giddy with the victory of having him stay over that she bumps into the doorway and opens the wrong cupboards. He stands in the landing patiently until she emerges with two towels and a folded white robe stacked on top of each other.

‘Here you are,’ she sings.

He’s careful not to touch her as he takes it from her.

‘Thank you.’

He disappears into her bathroom, and once the door is shut Aeris breathes out, trying to calm down. She scurries to the biggest room and checks the bin, the drawers, the cupboards. She goes to the attic and brings down a selection of large enough clothes, hanging everything up in the cupboard while the shower water drones on. There’s a sort of pleasant fog settling in her body as she listens to the patter of water. She tries valiantly to steer the thoughts away but they crash through her mental defenses. He’s actually naked in there. Under the shower water. Her imagination fires up before she can do anything about it and she’s piecing together parts of her old Midgarian boyfriends in a Frankensteinian attempt to make up what he might look like. The flat abdominal plain, the chiseled hipbones. The long corded muscles of his legs. But he’s a Soldier – surely he looks far from normal. Bulkier, for one. They have superhuman strength, don’t they? She bites her lip and remembers how broad and well-defined his shoulder muscles looked under the wet shirt. No, no, no. She slams a mental door on the images and turns to the cupboard. It’s already miraculous enough that they managed to have half-decent small talk. She has to stay professional.

She takes black linens out of the top of the cupboard and starts making the bed. If he’s going to be around tomorrow then she needs a tight schedule for him to believe she’s working as efficiently as she can. In the morning they can go out on a trail ride and work on casting Firaga spells. Then if she can get one of her clients to lend her their airship for the afternoon… it shouldn’t be too difficult. Maybe Sephiroth himself can commission one from the military. She takes down a red velvet bed cover and throws it over the bed, leaning forwards to straighten the sides. What will she even talk about with him on the trail ride? _Did you enjoy the shower?_ Yeah, that wouldn’t be creepy at all. Perhaps she should think of some conversational topics so it won’t be too awkward.

The shower water has stopped running. She’s too lost in thought to notice the door inching open behind her. She sweeps her hands over the red velvet. Perhaps she should keep the conversation focused on Six.

‘Er – sorry…’

She jumps around. He’s there in the doorway, sopping hair coiled over one shoulder, night robe open over his chest and tied at the waist. There is skin on show. There is a lot of skin. Aeris can feel her cheeks burning and she looks back at the bed. She was _bending over_ and he was right there _–_

‘Is this the room, then?’ Sephiroth asks.

‘Yes. Um. I put some clothes for you in the cupboard, I hope they’re the right size,’ she gabbles.

‘Thank you.’ He’s looking at her with a curious glint in his eye.

‘I’ll leave you to settle in. If you need anything at all, I’m just across the corridor.’

She keeps her eyes down as she makes for the door. He steps to the side, and she catches a whiff of her own cherry shampoo as she crosses him. He smells so clean. She goes to her bedroom door, glances over her shoulder to signal it to him. He gives her a nod from his doorway.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he says.

‘Yeah. I’m going to do a night check on the birds and then I’ll be in here if you need me.’

‘Understood.’

‘Goodnight!’

She goes through the motions of the night check in a haze. She says goodnight to all the stable hands she meets. None of them have noticed that they have a guest – they were all way out at the fifth barn. They’ll just have to see for the themselves in the morning, she’s too tired for more conversation. The roper boy looks her up and down when she waves goodnight to him, raising his eyebrows.

‘You’ve been out in the rain, haven’t you?’ he says with a sly grin.

She looks down at herself. Her black jodhpurs are clammy against her legs, but her shirt – oh Gaia, her _shirt_. It’s pink, and it’s clinging to her with the rain like a second skin. The outline of her bra isn’t too visible, but – her nipples are definitely poking out with the cold.

She wraps an arm around her chest and slaps the roper around the head.

‘Pervert!’

She runs back to the farmhouse. Sephiroth saw her like this. Oh, Gaia. She’s never going to be able to look him in the eye again.

*

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of verbiage in this one but I promise there is fluff afterwards to make up for it. <3 Please tell me if it's confusing.

‘I’m not sure this is necessary.’

Sephiroth stands by the entrance to the training ring, hands on Six’s reins. Her request for him to demonstrate how he rides has been taken as an implication of less-than-perfect riding skills. He is not pleased.

‘I do this before every trail ride with a new client,’ she explains. ‘It’s just a precautionary measure. It won’t take long.’

Aeris won’t be intimidated. She’s taken to looking at the space next to Sephiroth’s head when talking to him. Especially since he appeared in the living room after breakfast wearing skin-tight beige jodhpurs, Gaia have mercy.

Sephiroth sighs. Then he turns to Six. She opens a wing for him, revealing a gleaming stirrup. He steps into it and swings up onto her saddle. He sits tall and straight-backed and Aeris thinks of marble monarchs riding atop plinths in city squares. His tack is brushed black leather, top quality, and the silver buckles mark a beautiful contrast against Six’s black feathers. Aeris watches as Six folds her wing back over Sephiroth’s leg, snugly enclosing him against her flank. He lets the reins glide between his fingers as he shortens them, feeling for Six’s beak on the other end. He hardly takes more than a few seconds to collect her, then he squeezes Six into a walk with a brush of his spurs. He holds Six’s head at an elegant angle as she picks her feet up, striding across the sand importantly.

From the fence, Aeris watches how Sephiroth’s hips sway in time with the bird’s paces, his shoulders dipping left and right. He warms her up with a trot. There’s a clink of tack and a rhythmic creak of leather as his thighs intimately mould the saddle, hips tilting to compensate for the shock of each step. A more inexperienced rider would be bouncing up and down even in a sitting trot, but he seems glued to her. Aeris can’t find a single technical fault to give him. He opens an arm as he guides Six into a succession of circles, their bodies moving as one across the sand. When he comes back down the track towards Aeris, he moves too fast for her to see – Six launches into a pirouette, one scaly foot digging into the sand while she pits her body weight around. Her wings flare out for balance and her other foot comes down again, propelling her in the opposite direction.

‘Nice,’ Aeris calls. She’s smiling as she watches Sephiroth collect his chocobo in half a second, her neck arching as she slots her beak downwards. Aeris watches intently, trying to catch the discreet aids he gives his bird. He guides Six into a shoulder-in so that she’s trotting down the track with her head angled towards the centre of the ring – and then they slide into a traverse, her body angling the other way. As he comes back towards Aeris again he guides Six into an effortless passage, her feet crossing over one another as she trots diagonally across the ring.

It’s dressage. He’s doing immaculate dressage as warm-up. Aeris is torn between awe and the urge to tell him to quit showing off. When Six breaks into piaffé in the middle of the diagonal, picking her feet up high, Aeris shakes her head.

‘So you trained your chocobo to piaffé into the battlefield?’ she calls. ‘Isn’t that a bit over-dramatic?’               

When Sephiroth circles back towards her she sees him smirking.

‘I have a friend who would probably do that sort of thing,’ he calls as he approaches. ‘But no. I’ve simply always preferred dressage over other sports when it comes to exercising her.’

‘Why’s that?’

He comes to a stop on the other side of the fence from her, casting a shadow over Aeris’s small figure. She looks up at how his hair frames his straight-backed posture, silver strands lifting in the wind.

‘More control. Subtler communication,’ he says.

‘I wouldn’t exactly call this subtle.’ Aeris reaches over the fence to tap his spur. He glances down.

‘It’s a precision aid.’

‘It’s medieval,’ Aeris huffs. ‘You’re using a spectrum of pain instead of pressure to tell her what to do.’

He shakes his head.

‘Hardly. With the correct amount of pressure it acts exactly in the same way as a heel does.’

‘Then why use it at all?’ Aeris insists. ‘If she doesn’t do what you say at first, then it just gives you the opportunity to hurt her for her to get the message. It’s visually more discreet than outright kicking her, but it has the same effect.’

Sephiroth gazes down at her coolly.

‘Asking nicely might work when there are no emergencies. Outside of your comfortable little hobbyist environment, additional reinforcement is very often necessary.’

Aeris shakes her head. ‘Violence is never necessary if she trusts you enough.’

‘So according to you, this isn’t trust?’

Sephiroth gestures at how still Six is standing, her head still, her beak shut.

‘No.’ Aeris feels for the materia in her bracer, and summons a small lightning spell right in front of Six. With a squawk, Six shies away – Sephiroth expertly leans over her shoulders as she staggers backwards in a mess of scaly legs. He tightens the reins and she rears her head to fight him, shrieking in distress. He pulls one rein down sharply, tugging her head down. She struggles and he somehow stays in his seat as he overpowers her, pulling her head around until her beak touches her wing. It’s the same technique that the roper used to inhibit her movements. Aeris crosses her arms.

‘ _That_ isn’t trust,’ she says.

‘You could’ve warned me,’ Sephiroth snaps.

‘Isn’t it the point that there’s never any warning when you’re out there?’

 He doesn’t say anything to that. He just reaches back and slaps Six on the rump as punishment while holding her head against her wing. She stumbles and chirps, unable to fight back with her neck bent at that awkward angle. Aeris comes forwards.

‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ she says. ‘You can get down now.’

‘Getting down would reward her for what she just did,’ Sephiroth says, before slapping Six again. Aeris curls her fingers into fists as Six flutters her wings helplessly.

‘I said get down.’  

‘With all due respect – ’    

‘You’re on my farm,’ Aeris snaps. ‘You respect my rules here. I don’t tolerate violence as negative reinforcement.’

However attractive he might be, there’s nothing quite like needless violence to turn Aeris right off. Once Six is standing sufficiently still, Sephiroth wordlessly hops down and holds up an open hand. Six shies a little and then collects herself again. Aeris wonders if she responded to him lifting a finger earlier because she knew the order culminated into a slap if she didn’t cooperate.

‘I’ll get Mako and we can get going. Wait here.’

‘Fine.’

 

 

The trail ride is a little awkward at first. Aeris guides him across open plains towards the mountains, and Sephiroth keeps enough distance between them to discourage conversation. They trot single-file across streams and up hills, sometimes slotting into rocky pathways marked by hikers. Once they reach higher ground, Aeris stops by a cluster of trees, staring down at the swamplands below as she waits for Sephiroth to reach her. She rubs Mako’s neck, glimpsing vague black shapes moving in the murky water as the sun slants through the mist.

She hears the clink of tack as Six climbs up the path behind her. Soon the rustle of feathers and leather is right behind her as the animal shifts its huge body. Sephiroth comes up next to her and pulls Six to a stop. They observe the scenery in silence for a moment. She looks at his smooth face, resting her hands on the pommel of her saddle. She waits for him to speak.

‘This isn’t something I’ve ever had to think about,’ he says at length. ‘Rewarding good behaviour and punishing the bad always seemed logical enough to me. That’s how my men are trained.’

‘Your men aren’t prey animals,’ Aeris says. ‘They can have malicious intents. They can lie. Chocobos can’t. When birds misbehave they don’t have an agenda, they aren’t trying to be difficult – they’re just trying to show you that they’re uncomfortable, or that your guidance isn’t appropriate.’

He glances at her. ‘So you’re saying you agree with corporeal punishment for human beings, but not for birds?’

 ‘That’s not what I said.’

‘It’s what you implied.’

She smiles. ‘I think grown men are capable of disgusting behaviour, and yes, sometimes they deserve a slap in the face.’ He raises an eyebrow so she stammers, ‘I’m not necessarily including you in that statement, but – ’

He chuckles.

‘That's fair enough.’

‘And I don’t think you use the type of corporeal punishment we’re talking about to train your men,’ Aeris continues. ‘When they make a mistake, what do you do?’

‘If their skills are inefficient or their decisions sloppy, it’s a question of giving them more work or depriving them of whatever they enjoy in their free time.’

‘So it’s a more psychological punishment,’ Aeris says. ‘You’re not dealing them any physical pain.’

‘I wouldn’t deal physical pain to someone unless they violated my orders intentionally and caused harm to others,’ Sephiroth explains. ‘And then it would depend on the urgency of the situation, and how long I have to make them understand.’

‘So you wouldn’t just hit a man if he spooked at something?’

Sephiroth’s shoulders have turned towards her as she speaks, clearly intrigued by her train of thought.

‘It’s different. When Six spooks at something, she endangers me.’

‘So you think that by hitting her, you reduce the danger.’

‘It’s not a question of what I think. It’s a question of what yields results. If she associates pain to a behaviour then she won’t reproduce it.’

‘The ends justify the means then? Is that what you believe?’

His mouth curves into something like a smirk. ‘There is a very important fact that you seem intent on ignoring.’

‘Oh?’

‘Verbal communication,’ he says. ‘I can exert a certain degree of control over a frightened man by talking to him. I can hardly do the same with a frightened chocobo. Resorting to painful reinforcement seems necessary with a nonverbal animal, doesn’t it?’

Aeris looks at him for a moment, fiddling with her reins. Then she hops off of Mako and backs away. 

‘Come on, I want to show you something.’

Sephiroth complies, swinging a leg over his saddle and dismounting from Six.

‘Let’s pretend I’m afraid of Mako,’ Aeris says. ‘Your task is to get me over there and into the saddle. If you don’t get me over there in ten minutes then the cliff collapses, so we can say I’m endangering you.’

Sephiroth’s lips twitch. ‘And I’m not allowed to speak to you, is that it?’

‘No, you can speak to me.’

He looks inquisitive. ‘Alright.’

She huddles on the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. Sephiroth waits until she’s in character, and then kneels down next to her.

‘Good body language,’ Aeris says. ‘Getting on the same level as me, making yourself smaller and less intimidating.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be scared out of your wits?’

‘I’m just trying to keep you aware of what your body’s doing.’

‘I am aware.’ He waits a moment. ‘If I pick you up and put you on that saddle, this exercise will be over in five seconds and you will have proved my point.’

‘Not if I jump off the saddle.’

‘Then I’ll tie you to it.’

‘Because tying a woman up is the best way to gain her trust.’

He smirks. ‘I thought this was about removing ourselves from a dangerous situation, rather than gaining your trust.’

‘It’s about doing both at the same time.’

‘OK. You want me to do it the hard way then.’

‘Well according to you, I’m a verbal animal, so you shouldn’t find it that hard.’

‘Mmm.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘What are you afraid of, Aeris?’

‘I’m afraid of that bird.’

‘What do you think it’ll do to you?’

‘It’ll peck at me.’

‘Seeing the state of your arms I’d say you’ve survived quite a deal of pecking.’

‘It still hurts and I’m scared.’

‘It won’t kill you. What will kill you is the cliff collapsing in ten minutes.’

They go on like this for several minutes, Sephiroth taking her through all the reasons why the bird wouldn’t harm her. When they approach the seven minute mark, he loses patience and grabs her forearm. She tries to pull away from him but he’s holding her in a vice-grip. He manages to pull her to her feet, and then all but drags her over to Mako. He sets her hand firmly in the chocobo’s feathers.

‘See? He’s not going to hurt you.’

‘Maybe he isn’t, but you are,’ Aeris says quietly.

‘Oh.’ Sephiroth releases her, and she looks at the red imprint of his fingers on her skin. Something about the strength of his grip thrills her – though that is far from the point of the exercise.

He’s frowning. ‘I’m sorry – ’

‘I’m fine, don’t worry.’ Aeris smiles at him as she rubs her wrist. ‘But you did prove my point. Even when you have the verbal option, you still choose force. So it isn’t really about communication. It’s about getting what you want.’

‘In a dangerous situation, it’s about getting what ultimately suits both people.’  

‘You didn’t persuade me that your idea suited me. You just showed me two options: be hurt by you, or be hurt by my phobia.’

‘Your character was very stubborn,’ Sephiroth attempts, and her smile widens.

‘What, you want me to go easy on you?’

There’s something terribly suggestive about the way he angles his shoulders at her and _looms_ in response to that. She has to fight not to look away.

‘Show me how you would’ve done it, then,’ he says.

He strides over to where she was, and she follows him. He doesn’t crouch, just stands there looking smug like she can't possibly win against him.

‘I think the hardest part of this exercise is pretending that _you_ are afraid of a chocobo,’ Aeris says, and Sephiroth chuckles again.

‘It’s your game. Play it. Get me over there.’

Aeris stands close to him, angling her body to show receptiveness. ‘Have you always trained Six through painful reinforcement?’

‘It’s basic military training. Like I said, it’s effective. Especially seeing the context. We were on the front lines when the birds were given to us.’

‘Alright. But by showing Six that aggressiveness is a form of communication, you’re encouraging her to respond in kind and reproduce that kind of aggressiveness with others,’ she explains. ‘You show her that attacking someone is the best way of saying no _._ She’s a submissive animal, so of course she’ll submit to you even if you dominate her violently. But you’re making it impossible for her to behave in a socially acceptable way with anyone else than you.’

Sephiroth crosses his arms, staring at her coolly.

‘How else do you say no to someone who is capable of endangering you?’ he asks.

‘By making your own option the most rewarding one,’ she says. ‘If you are trying to bond with someone, isn’t it better for them to associate you with rewards than punishments? It’s better for them to act because they appreciate the value of _yes,_ than because they’re constantly afraid of _no_.’

She takes a step back, pretending to be whimsically moving while speaking. Sephiroth’s body seems to be relaxing as he listens to her. His shoulders are low, his hips slightly loose. She takes another step back, and he follows.

‘The value of _yes_ isn’t always immediately appreciable,’ he says. ‘If we were talking about parenting, I know some people who would take serious issue with your philosophy.’

‘It’s a longer way forwards, but it brings you an ultimately more stable and socially integrated animal,’ Aeris explains. ‘You’ve been talking from a utilitarian perspective up till now – I’m talking about the long-term bond you’re building. Six is going to be in your care for her whole life. Of course careful communication is important when you're the most important figure in her eyes. People tend to take their importance for granted.’

‘Whether it’s for chocobos or children alike,’ Sephiroth muses, as though making some private judgment of his own. ‘You still haven’t addressed the fact of finding an alternative to talking.’

‘Body language and intellectual stimulation works fine,’ Aeris says. ‘You’ve noticed when lunging her, how she moves forwards when you go towards her tail, right?’

‘Yes, and?’

Aeris is dallying backwards in a slow zigzag, and Sephiroth is following. They’re halfway towards the chocobos.

‘In the wild, birds are so finely attuned to each other’s movements that you can hardly tell who’s leading, and when the order is given. They’re hypersensitive and constantly trying to interpret what their leaders are telling them. So unless they’ve been dulled by years of grueling work, you don’t need to kick and slap and shout to get your message across.’

‘I know that.’

‘If you’re trying to regain your bird’s attention away from something that’s scary to them, the best way would be to make them move their feet. Have them follow your lead, play a game to occupy their mind until they’ve blanked out what it was that was scaring them in the first place.’

‘That sounds like a dangerous philosophy to endorse from a human perspective,’ Sephiroth says with a smirk.

‘We’re not talking about politics here.  What I’m talking about is regaining awareness of how our bodies respond to each other, and then using that to our advantage.’

‘You're suggesting we're never aware of what our bodies are doing?’

‘Well, rarely. Some bodily cues are obvious enough to perform, of course,’ Aeris says. ‘Like when you’re trying to intimidate someone. Or seduce them.’

Sephiroth raises an eyebrow.

‘The language of intimidation is obvious enough, I’ll agree to that,’ he says. ‘But everyone seems to have their own idea of what seductive body language is.’

‘Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,’ Aeris teases. She watches with delight as Sephiroth frowns and tries to protest. They’re right next to Mako, now – he’s sniffing at Aeris’ hair.

‘I’m just trying to say that body language can be far more misleading and therefore isn't even remotely comparable to verbal communication.’

‘Only in our case. Because we’re constantly influenced by all the unnatural things that society makes us do. But just like with animals, you can make your body language crystal clear if you really try.’ She turns to Mako, running her fingers down his soft neck. ‘For instance, however _ineffective_ and subconscious you might call the language, I’d say our bodies just had a pretty good conversation.’

Sephiroth seems to suddenly jerk to attention. He looks at Mako, mouth parted.

‘Wait – we were still doing the exercise?’

Aeris laughs. ‘Yeah. Of course.’

‘But you were talking.’

‘Talking was never off-limits. I just took your mind off of your fear, and then my body did the rest.’

‘Wait.’ He looks back to where they were standing, and then to her. ‘You took my mind off of my whole character, not just the fear.’

‘I only occupied your mind while walking, and you followed because you were being receptive to me.’

‘Mmm. Mimetism.’ His eyes darken. ‘You played me.’

Aeris no longer has any idea what her body is doing. There should be laws against this. Against him. Existing. She tightens her hand on Mako’s stirrup and tries her hardest not to melt into a puddle on the floor.

‘I did, yeah.’

‘OK, I think I understand your point.' He thinks for a moment. 'I should use a gentler approach involving body language to reassure Six, instead of giving her the stick.’ As though summoned, Six reaches to touch her beak to Sephiroth’s shoulder, and he absently strokes the sharp tip of it. ‘I’m not sure how to apply that when in the saddle, though.’

Aeris grins. ‘Let’s get to the Firaga exercises, then. I can show you.’

 

They climb back onto their birds and resume the trail ride. Aeris leads him across rocky terrain, and he follows her lead. Once they’re clear of trees, Aeris signals for him to give her his fire materia. He brings Six close, hands her the crystal.

‘OK. So if Six responds badly – whatever you do, _don’t_ do what you did in the ring,’ Aeris tells him. ‘She’s got to understand that you are the comfortable option. You are her safe space.’

‘Even if she flaps all over the place and tries to hurl me off?’

‘What, you can’t stay in your seat?’ she teases. He’s just too much of an easy target. He gives her that _look_ again and she’s trying not to think of how much she’d like to be that saddle of his right now.

‘Fine. What’s the alternative if she acts up, then? I give her a hug?’

‘You loosen the reins, stay relaxed, and lean back to discourage any bolting.’

He nods, then squeezes Six into a trot to create distance between them. Once he turns her around again, Aeris holds up a hand.

The mastered fire materia sends pulses of magic down her arm. She shivers. The sheer strength of it is almost too much. She wonders how he can bear it. Over the next half hour, she casts progressively larger fire spells and culminates in simultaneous ones. Six is calm at first, and then starts getting antsy as the fire surrounds her. Aeris watches as Sephiroth instinctively tightens his reins before making the conscious effort to let them slide through his fingers. Six rears her head and, finding no resistance, settles into a trot again with a few indignant flutters. It’s a game of tightening and loosening control. Aeris calls over at Sephiroth whenever he slips back into his austere habits. 

By the end of it, he manages to guide Six through a dressage routine with fire blazing around them. Aeris can hear the bird panting as she listens to her master, her body sliding in and out of the collected posture he’s trying to encourage. Once Aeris stops casting, Sephiroth is so focused on his animal and keeping his aids gentle that he doesn’t notice. Aeris allows herself to watch him for a moment, sitting as straight and elegant as a knight as he makes his bird dance over the dry ground. Then she calls out to him. It’s time to go home for lunch.

 *

They’re both sweaty and breathless when they stride back into the barn, discussing the outcomes of the exercise while their chocobos follow behind. Aeris doesn’t even realize the stares she gets from the stable hands as she leads ShinRa’s infamous General through the barn aisle to Six’s stall. They already got stared at plenty this morning when they tacked up, so if the boys are still going to just hide in the hay instead of introducing themselves, Aeris isn’t going to do it for them.

Once they’ve stored the tack away, they part ways. Sephiroth goes to make himself lunch at the farmhouse, while Aeris runs off to spend time with a problem bird she’s been working on this week. They agree to meet up afterwards so they can start on the loading problem. Sephiroth says he has access to an old disused airship, so he makes plans for it to arrive later.

Aeris throws herself so relentlessly in her work that she barely even registers how prestigious her client is by the end of it. Her hands are burned from winding up ropes, her arms tremble from magical abuse, and her legs are wobbly from chasing Six around the parked airship while the sun slowly sank behind the horizon. She works alongside Sephiroth like he’s just another chocobo hobbyist, shouting at him from across the paddock, passing him rope and tack and feed buckets with muddy hands. He in turn shows increasing interest in her methods, respecting how passionate she is about doing things right.

Dinner swings around and Sephiroth takes his meal in his bedroom while her and Bill sit in the living room with two other stable hands. She’s too tired by then to give adequate responses to the grooms’ whispered questions. Why is he here? How much is he paying you? What is he like? She gives one-word replies and eventually they pester Bill instead.

 

She plods out after dinner to turn out the birds. The respectable hour to remain as a guest is fast approaching its end, and she wonders with a distant kind of disappointment when Sephiroth will be leaving. She takes Six and Mako out, and builds a fire in their paddock as usual. Then she sits in front of it while the two birds chase each other playfully, snapping their beaks and flapping at each other over the flames. 

She looks up at the stars, relishing the rare moment of calm. The fire crackles, spreading a sweet musty scent, and she smiles as she listens to the birds squawk and rustle their feathers. Sometimes, it’s enough. She can sit and feel full. Happy. It’s a sensation she never felt before coming out here. She hugs her knees closer, shivering a little. She has the vague urge to call Elmyra, just to add to the feeling of completeness.

There are steps behind her. She turns to see who it is, only to stare into the brown feathery wool of a blanket. It falls around her shoulders, and she feels warm hands flattening it against her back. Then Sephiroth has sat down beside her with a huff. She smiles at him, blushing at his thoughtfulness as she draws the blanket closer around her. He’s scraped his hair up in a ponytail, and she’s reminded for a moment of his younger self.

‘Stargazing?’ he comments.

‘It’s still vaguely daunting to me,’ Aeris says. ‘All I used to see when I looked up was a big metal plate, or grey clouds.’

‘They’re very clear out here,’ he agrees. ‘Everything seems clearer when you step out of Midgar.’

They sit in companionable silence for a while.

'I'm sorry if I spilled my way of seeing things all over you earlier. I didn't mean to be rude or condescending - '

'No, it's fine. Your views are unusual, and surprisingly effective. I enjoyed listening to them.'

‘Are you heading back, then?’

‘Mmm.’

The noise is noncommittal. She looks at his face, waiting for a solid answer.

‘I don’t suppose you might be tempted by the excellent room service we have here,’ she adds in a hoity-toity voice, and the thoughtful line of his mouth breaks into a smirk.

‘I must say, the faulty shower that takes ten minutes to warm up _is_ a plus,’ he deadpans.

‘Don’t forget the bed springs that poke you in all the wrong places.’

‘And the half-savage birds who want you dead.’

She giggles into her blanket. He glances at her, waits a moment and then says,

‘There are some perks, however.’

She stares straight at the fire. If she looks at him now she’ll probably combust.

‘Oh?’

‘Well, the food’s alright.’

‘Oh well in that case you _have_ to stay.’

‘Mmm.’

Again they lapse into silence, except this time she’s acutely aware of his body next to her, the huge bulk of him, how he shifts when he stretches out a leg and leans back on one arm. She’s going blind from how hard she’s looking at the fire but she doesn’t care. If she looks at him she will move in a wholly inappropriate direction, and she can’t predict whether he’d like it.

‘If I stay I’ll have to check the boiler,’ he says. ‘Cold showers are not an admissible part of vacation.’

He really needs to stop referring to the moment of the day where he’s naked and covered in soap three doors away from her bedroom.

‘You’re going to use up all my shampoo with that hair of yours,’ she protests.

‘I think I might’ve used it up already.’

‘What!’

‘There was hardly any left. And there were two more bottles under the sink, I checked.’

‘Don’t you dare. Go to Kalm and get some of your own.’

‘Fine. I will.’

Accepting to do a shopping run in Kalm surely means that he intends to stay for more than just one day. Aeris’s toes curl in her boots as she imagines living in close quarters with him. She’s going to have to carry a bucket of cold water around.

He touches a hand to her shoulder briefly and she turns to look at him.

‘You should get some rest.’

She smiles. ‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He gets up and leaves her sitting there in front of the fire, huddled up in her blanket and smiling up to her ears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just some vocab: 'cutting cattle' is the act of separating one cow from the herd while on horseback. It can be done as a sport but it's also used by ranchers to herd cattle around (at least, to my knowledge - I'm not really expert). Here when they talk about 'cutting birds', it's that sort of thing transposed onto chocobos.

~~~~*

 

By the second day, it feels like he’s settled in permanently. There are silver hairs around the shower drain, bottles of rose-scented shampoo he bought from Kalm sitting among her own products. She has to spend time with her other clients, so he disappears to Kalm in the morning and then occupies himself while she gives back healed birds to their owners throughout the afternoon. The evening is spent in the living room, Aeris organizing her paperwork at her desk while Sephiroth reads quietly in an armchair. She has a thought for how his silent, unobtrusive presence in the corner of her eye must have the same effect on her that the fire pit has on Six. She can actually withstand his looks and his teasing without blushing now. (Well, mostly.) By the time she’s finished the paperwork, it’s late – Bill went to bed a while ago. She stretches in her chair, flicks through the TV magazine that Bill always leaves lying around on her papers. There’s some goofy drama on, so she gets up to slump into the couch, flicking the TV on. Sephiroth’s armchair is adjacent to her – he looks up from his book as she sits within arm’s reach of him.

‘I just need to kill some brain cells,’ she says. ‘I can put it on mute if it bothers you.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

She rests her face against a hand as she watches the images flash in front of her without absorbing any of it.  After a while she finally addresses the issue that’s been bugging her ever since he came in here to keep her company.

‘Isn’t it boring for you out here? Compared to the city?’

Sephiroth glances up again.

‘I thought we’d established that Midgar is a sunless cesspool that both of us are happy to avoid.’

 ‘Yeah, but – I don’t know.’ She picks at the scaly red polish on her nails. ‘Between life on the plate and all the travelling you do… you must’ve seen so much. You must’ve _done_ so much. A chocobo farm doesn’t exactly offer the best nightlife.’

He hums thoughtfully. ‘When you lead a life like mine, it’s a rare and precious thing to be able to sit down in a quiet environment and just do nothing.’ She watches as he trails his long fingers down the spine of his book. ‘Just talking about things that are so far removed from my usual sphere of activities makes me feel like I can finally breathe.’

‘Must be nice to have seen so much of the world that you’re sick of it,’ Aeris says with an envious smile.

‘You work with chocobos. You must do you fair share of travelling.’

‘I kind of have… boundaries,’ Aeris admits. ‘It comes with the surveillance benefits.’

Sephiroth looks at her with that spark of curiosity in his eye.

‘Boundaries?’

‘It’s a bit of an insurance thing,’ Aeris says. ‘I can’t go too far because they’re afraid I’ll put myself in danger. Not to mention I’d be making it harder for them to monitor me.’

He seems too polite to ask what it is that ShinRa needs her for. At least, he acknowledges that it’s a bit of a private question to ask. Part of her wishes that he would, just to show interest that goes beyond this friendly partnership they’re enjoying.

‘So that’s why you used to live in Midgar? Your boundaries didn’t extend further?’

‘Yeah. I pushed a bit, and they relented this chunk. And it’s nice, but it’s still just one chunk.’

‘What happens if you go beyond?’

She smiles at him. ‘You’re not a bad influence at all, are you?’

‘If being unable to travel is something that affects your mental well-being, then surely there must be some considerable incentive to stop you from breaking their rules.’

‘You think I’d just go against ShinRa if I wasn’t impressed enough by their threats?’

The way he’s looking at her is making her toes curl against the carpet.

‘I think you aren’t someone who gets intimidated easily.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Do you know how many people I can have casual conversation with?’ Sephiroth says. ‘I can probably count them on the fingers of one hand. Because most people see me and are too intimidated to do anything else than stutter and squash themselves entirely.’

Aeris cocks an eyebrow. ‘Must be some power trip.’

His lips curve into that scandalous smirk of his and Aeris has a vivid image of herself clambering on top of him and biting down on it. ‘It’s what comes with my position,’ he explains.

 ‘Well, after hearing you sing I can’t say I was overly intimidated.’

Sephiroth looks positively _embarrassed_. Aeris grins at the victory of extracting such a reaction from him.

‘The purpose was purely so you could get the melody.’

‘You actually sounded quite nice, if I'm honest.’

‘You weren't quite so bad yourself. Even if your pronunciation was off. In about twelve different places.’

Immediately she wishes she never brought it up in the first place.

‘I should’ve gotten my Wutain client to sing it for you.’

‘No. I prefer it this way around,’ Sephiroth says. ‘That way I’m not the only one with blackmail material.’

‘Blackmail material! I could probably sell that audio file for thousands.’

‘I’m trusting you to keep it between us.’

He makes it sound like they’re talking about something far more intimate than a random audio clip. Aeris shifts in her seat. She lets her gaze wander down to his crossed legs, the way the book is weighing down on his thigh. How his long pale fingers are absently tracing the embossed contours of the cover.

‘Maybe if you give me a considerable enough incentive,’ she says with a grin.

He gives her one of his cool stares for a moment. And then his eyes flick down to her lips. And back up again.

‘If even ShinRa’s threats don’t scare you, then how far would I have to go?’

She didn’t know it was possible to unravel so completely in less than five seconds. She has to change the topic.

‘They do scare me,’ she says. ‘Otherwise I’d be going on Bill’s errands up north with the boys every other week.’

‘Of all the places you could go, you’d choose the Northern Continent?’

‘Yeah.’ Aeris’s smile turns wistful. _It’s where I was born._ ‘It’s where we go to restock on Carob nuts and greens and chocobos for breeding. I’d love to meet the chocobo sage up there. He’s one of the best trainers in the world. Or at least, he was. Apparently he’s a bit odd.’

They talk about Sephiroth’s own experiences of the continent and its settlements, Aeris asking him to describe as much as possible. The little square of moonlight on the floor travels between their feet, and Aeris is too lost in snowy images of glaciers and chalets to realise that it’s getting far too late. Sephiroth is the one to bring up the piddly amount of hours between now and the moment she has to get up. Flustered, Aeris switches off the neglected TV and manages to climb out of the comfort of the couch.

‘You’re going to be available tomorrow then, yes?’ Sephiroth asks.

‘Yes. I’m all yours.’

He nods, says ‘goodnight then’ and goes back to his book. She kicks herself all the way to bed.

*

They spend the next few days taking Six through complex games and mental exercises to get her in a rational enough mindset to tackle the airship. To no avail. Aeris decides to start much smaller than she’d planned. They manage to get her into at least a trailer after much coaxing and baiting. Sephiroth pulls her around with Bill’s truck to get her used to being transported unsedated while Aeris tends to the other chocobos. All too quickly nighttime swings around. Aeris sits in the living room, waiting for Sephiroth to come back while she does her paperwork. She’s beginning to anticipate the evenings they spend together far too eagerly. It’s like he takes her with him across oceans when he describes the different parts of the world to her. She sits, pretending to be contributing only off-handedly when in reality she could stay up till dawn listening to the deep rumble of his voice.   

One morning at the end of the week, Aeris wakes up to a call from Joe. He’s saying something about recommending her services to someone on the other side of the world and calling to give her a heads-up. The sky is still dark outside and she grumbles into her PHS, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She accepts to wait for the call, and gets up to fetch a glass of water. 

For a while she does nothing but walk around the silent farm house, feeling the worn floorboards under her bare feet. She waters the plants, tiptoeing around the living room and spilling water into them from her own glass. She comes to the armchair that Sephiroth seems to have elected and lingers for a moment, breathing in what remains of his scent on the leather. Again, contentment settles in her belly. Though this time it’s slightly spoiled by the feeling that she must be missing something. If she’s this happy then it must mean there’s something she hasn’t factored in, something she’s been pushing to the back of her mind for far too long.

Dawn breaks without any phone calls. Aeris is restless. She goes out and mixes feeds for the birds just to do something with her hands. When she goes back to the farmhouse to change into something more convenient than her pyjamas-and-coat combo, Bill has come down for his breakfast. They share the usual morning hug before Aeris runs upstairs to get dressed.

She’s in the shower when her PHS rings from her bedroom. She calls for Bill to get it, turning the shower water off and quickly wrapping her towel around herself. There’s a knock on the door. Expecting Bill, she pulls it wide open, her hand holding the towel shut over her breasts.

It’s not Bill.

‘Sorry.’

For a moment she just helplessly locks eyes with Sephiroth, mouth open, any type of verbal capacity now long gone. The warm cloud of condensation from the shower seeps out of the room and envelops him as she holds the door open. They both ignore the mobile ringing shrilly in his hand. His gaze travels down her neck and over her bare shoulders, following the trail of her wet hair. It feels like an eternity before she regains her wits and takes the PHS from him.

‘Thanks.’

The three-times world champion speaks on the other end of the line but she can hardly concentrate. He’s still looking. She hooks her toes around the edge of the door and instead of kicking it shut, she pulls it to as slowly as she dares. Sephiroth was turning his shoulders away to go back down the corridor, but seeing the deliberateness of her gesture, he lets his eyes linger on her naked legs instead. When he looks up at her face again a question seems to burn between them for a second. Then the door finally clicks shut.

She has to get the champion to repeat a couple of times, her brain is so scrambled. Once she’s done, she goes to her bedroom to get dressed and note down the guy’s specifications in her logbook. Then, biting her lip, she pulls open the bottom drawer of her dresser where her lingerie is lovingly folded and stacked. She hasn’t used it for a man’s benefit in the past five years. She rubs the delicate gold-thread patterns and tries to imagine what kind of reaction he’d have if she made an effort. Problem is, it’s difficult to ascertain whether or not Sephiroth understands his own desires, let alone how to put them across. She’s been getting all sorts of contradictory signals from him but if _that_ wasn’t a clear signal then she doesn’t know what is. She’s been thinking about going on a camping trip with him up in the mountains, for Six’s benefit of course. One night up there to test her endurance and trust levels. One night to test a whole lot of things. Maybe…

 She decides on a black set, striped with velvet. Even with her less-than-sensual riding gear on top, she still feels the straps digging pleasantly into her skin when she goes down for breakfast. Sephiroth is peeling fruit at the counter while Bill and a stable hand are still at the table, discussing the kid’s plans for the future – something about Mideel. Aeris takes out a biscuit tin without so much as looking at Sephiroth. His presence is so huge in the corner of her eye that it doesn’t even matter where she goes. He’s still right there. Gaia, he was _looking_.

There’s the familiar sound of helicopter rotors spoiling the usual morning birdsong. Aeris is pulled out of her giddy train of thought. Tseng shouldn’t be arriving so soon. She looks out the window to watch the helicopter land, her heart thrumming at the implications. Why has he broken schedule?

She meets him at the entrance of the farmhouse. He smiles a tight-lipped smile at her as he comes up to her.

‘What are you doing here so early?’ she blurts out. He raises an eyebrow.

‘Good to see you, too.’ He nods over her shoulder to Sephiroth, who does little more than acknowledge the man before retreating upstairs.  

Bill stands up, goes over to them to shake Tseng’s hand. Then he stays close to Aeris.

‘Has something happened?’ Bill asks.

‘No, don’t worry. I’m just here for a surprise visit.’

It’s rare for him to put on his professional poker face for her. Aeris frowns. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘I was going to take you shopping at Nightingale’s. You look like your wardrobe needs refreshing.’

Aeris’s face goes white. She forces a smile.

‘I thought we were going to do that in June,’ she says slowly.

‘There’s a brand new shop I’m sure you’re eager to see.’

He’s not really taking her to Nightingale’s. It’s their code. And like always it serves his purpose. Bill stands there for a minute before deciding that there’s nothing alarming about the exchange and heads back to the table. For a bewildering moment Aeris wants to shout at him to help her, to stop Tseng from taking her. But it’s routine. She does this every year. At least he isn’t calling her back forever - he’s just taking her for the usual physical check-up.

Except this time it’s early, and there are _new things_ involved. She can hardly bear to imagine what part of her they haven’t prodded yet – what new test they’ve concocted and what they’ll need for it.

‘You’ll be back by lunchtime,’ Tseng promises her. His eyes have grown soft, like he wants her to know how much it pains him to do this. She hangs her head. 

‘I’ll get my things.’

 

Upstairs, Sephiroth is leaning in the doorway of his room, sipping from his coffee mug. She gives him the most genuine smile she can muster.

‘Sorry. You’ll have to make do without me for a couple of hours.’

‘Is this another perk of your surveillance benefits?’

He looks completely unconvinced by her and Tseng’s little playacting spiel. Heart pounding, she realises he’s probably used to decoding the bullshit stories that Tseng comes up with to hide the truth. She frowns down at her door handle.

‘It’s Tseng’s way of apologizing for all he puts me through.’

‘Hmm. I’ll have to file a complaint for favouritism. He’s never taken _me_ to a luxurious department store.’

Aeris can’t help smirking at that. ‘Well, you aren’t me. I’m sure you get your own rewards.’

‘If only.’

 ‘Look, I’ll see you after lunch, OK? I thought we could go out and work with a herd of wild birds. Spend the night in the mountains to get Six used to prolonged use of magic, and spending timeout with other chocobos.’

Sephiroth hums thoughtfully at that. She wonders if he can tell that this is also a bullshit story. She hardly even feels up to the flirtiness she’d initially planned, now that the temporariness of her situation has been nailed back into her heart.

‘I’ll keep working on trailer loading with her while you’re away, then.’

‘Sounds good.’

She packs a few things into a backpack and leaves with Tseng.  

*

 

She comes back loaded with shopping bags. Well. Tseng is the one carrying them. Bill greets them in the kitchen and Aeris puts up the kind of bubbly attitude that is expected of a girl who’s just been treated to the most expensive store in Midgar. Bill scoffs into his frying pan and predictably doesn’t ask questions in the face of all this overwhelmingly girly behaviour. Tseng follows Aeris up to her room to help with the bags and Aeris sits slowly on her bed, wincing as she pulls her thighs together. She’s clutching her belly and staring at the wall while he takes out the clothes he bought for her. She hasn’t said a word to him since coming out of the labs. He opens her cupboard doors so he can hang some stuff up, desperate to do her some kind of favour.

‘Tseng.’

Her voice is rough. He spins around immediately. ‘Yes?’

‘I can hang it up myself.’

‘It’s fine. I know you must be tired, it’s no problem – ’ 

‘Gaia, can you just give me some privacy?’

He looks at her for a moment and then nods, automatically joining his hands behind his back in some pointless display of professionalism.

‘I’ll see you next week, then.’

‘Great.’

He lets himself out, shutting the door after him. Aeris stays hunched for a few minutes before getting up. The clothes on her body feel as invasive as the IVs and tubes and lab assistants’ hands – she peels off the itchy fabrics, rubbing her skin as though brushing away unwanted fingers. She stands in front of her mirror, looking at the lingerie she’s wearing and remembering her naïve intentions. She was being completely ridiculous. It’s like she gift-wrapped something that’s been broken and fixed up so many times that it shouldn’t even belong on the second-hand shelf. She tugs the lingerie off, sits at the desk and takes out a pair of scissors. Methodically, she cuts through the delicate velvet like it’s the fabric of her own inappropriate desires. None of it will happen to her – the happy endings, the romance she so desperately dreams about. She knows better than to get her hopes up. Perhaps the early lab visit was a blessing.

She rubs the tears away from her cheeks angrily, watching the snippets of velvet progressively covering her desk. Why does it matter so much to her? He never would’ve reciprocated, anyway. She should be happy with the freedoms she’s already managed to scrape for herself. 

Bill calls up to her, mentioning her lunch going cold. She shouts back to eat without her and spends the lunch hour curled up naked on her bed, hugging a cushion against her. The new clothes are in a pile on the floor. She’ll hang them up when she will have stopped wanting to burn them.

 *

 

She finds Sephiroth in front of the main barn, unloading Six from the trailer he's been using. Immediately they lapse into business, taking care of their own birds and tacking them up for the journey. Aeris checks the weather for the night and informs him that they won’t need a tent. She rummages in the storage room and finds sleeping bags for both of them. While Sephiroth straps them to the saddles, she goes to get food for them. She grabs a bottle of her favourite apricot brandy from Bill’s wine cellar, too. She takes a swig, savouring the punch at the back of her throat before corking it up again. She knows just how excited she would’ve been if Tseng hadn’t taken her to Midgar and she pities that girl, that innocent version of herself that she allows herself to become when she buries her past for long enough.   

An hour later they’re both astride their birds, her leading Sephiroth towards the chocobos' territories. He hasn’t asked anything about that morning – he’s apparently noticed just how focused she is on the birds, and is following her lead by keeping the conversation strictly on the task at hand. They stop above a sloping valley, having followed chocobo tracks and scattered yellow feathers to a herd. The birds are up ahead – the alphas haven’t noticed them yet.

‘Six isn’t trained to cut birds yet,’ Aeris tells him as she scratches Mako’s head. ‘You know how she mirrors your movements when you do groundwork with her?

‘Yes?’

‘Well, you’ve got to encourage her to do that with these birds. It’s a natural instinct for her, but once you’re in the saddle she’s trained to squash that instinct, among others. You’ve just got to let her know that she can let loose and be herself even with you in the saddle.’

Sephiroth narrows his eyes at her. ‘I have a feeling we should’ve practiced a little more for this. Or perhaps you just enjoy throwing me in the deep end?’

Aeris grins. ‘I know you can handle it.’

‘Don’t give me that. I know this is just another one of your attempts to get her to hurl me in the mud.’

‘Oh, I would _never_ endanger a client like that.’

‘Sure.’

He flicks the long train of his reins against Mako’s rump and the bird shies away with an indignant squawk. Aeris sways easily with Mako’s movements, glaring at Sephiroth for being so childish – but Sephiroth is already trotting away towards the herd, pointing Six’s feathered rump in her direction. She laughs and shouts, ‘Yeah, that’s really mature! _’_

It feels good to laugh. She asks Mako for a gallop, and the bird spreads his wings as he zooms towards Sephiroth. She passes him, showering Six with clumps of earth that Mako kicks up. She hears a squawk and wings flapping behind her and she grins to herself.

The first necessary step is to get rid of the monsters that the chocobo herd has tamed for protection. Aeris patrols on one side of the herd while Sephiroth takes the other side, both of them casting spells left and right. Aeris knows it’s pointless but she still glances over at him, appreciating how his body twists and his hair whips around his shoulders as he casts high-level magic. It feels like defiance to allow herself to appreciate the sight of him. So she only looks harder. If she can’t have what she wants then Gaia, she’ll at least take what she can.

‘Six is looking good!’ she shouts over at him when he casts another lightning spell without Six flinching. He looks over at her from across the herd as acknowledgement. When the path is clear, she cuts a chocobo out of the herd with Mako, chasing it out towards Sephiroth. They both hem the bird in, Sephiroth guiding Six left and right while Aeris lets Mako jump instinctively without touching the reins. The wild bird is flapping and chirping unhappily, trying to find a breach to escape back to its herd.

‘Look at Mako,’ Aeris calls to Sephiroth. He obligingly looks over, reluctant to divide his attention. Aeris holds her hands up to show how little she’s controlling him. The wild bird pounces to the left and Mako meets him there, wings out for balance as he jumps in the bird’s way. Aeris giggles as she tries not to fall off, thighs clenching around the saddle. ‘He’s doing it by himself.’

‘Shall I just let go of Six’s reins?’ Sephiroth calls back. Aeris shakes her head.

‘Guide her first. Move your body in the same way she would – follow the wild bird’s movements. She’ll get what you mean.’

Sephiroth does as she says, eyes tracked on the bird as he orients his body accordingly. Six feels the change of body pressure whenever he turns, and soon she’s responding without him needing to exaggerate his movements. He lets his reins progressively slide until he’s only controlling her with leg pressure and a twitch of the hips. With a chirp of understanding, Six throws herself after the wild bird. Aeris glimpses a smile on Sephiroth’s lips as he allows himself to hold his own hands up.

'Great!’ Aeris calls. ‘OK, let’s stop aggravating this guy.’

They gather their reins again and lead the wild bird back to its herd, and then they take their positions at either side of it. Aeris is used to this herd, and they’re used to her – this isn’t the first time she and the stable hands have used them to teach clients how to cut. The goal is to take them up to a higher pasture, protecting them against bigger monsters along the way so that they can graze on fresh territory. Whenever birds stray from the herd, both of them let their chocobos catch them and hem them back in – Mako and Six are eyeing the herd like they’ve taken the place of the alphas, slotting into their dominant roles easily.   

 

The sun progressively sinks as they climb higher up the mountain. Soon there is a deep orange light slanting over everything, and the trees are casting long shadows. They weave their way around patches of forest and try to keep an eye out for any wayward chicks. When the sun disappears, they have to stop and set up camp. Aeris sets about spraying repellant in a perimeter around their elected spot, while Sephiroth ties their birds up with a generous amount of slack and prepares a fire pit.   

When Aeris comes back, Sephiroth has drawn up a huge branch to act as a bench around the fire. He’s sitting on it, cutting up onions and peppers and chucking them into the pot they brought. There’s a swelling in her chest as she imagines that this must be how his friends see him – sitting around a campfire in foreign territory, doing something as domestic as chopping up vegetables. 

‘Six hasn’t tried to rip any of the birds’ throats out yet,’ he says as she stands by the fire to warm her hands. ‘I don’t trust it.’

‘We can keep an ear out tonight,’ Aeris says.

‘She was pecking at the birds who broke away earlier. I wasn’t sure whether to stop her.’

‘As long as she isn’t actively trying to kill them then that’s fine,’ Aeris says with a laugh. ‘It’ll take her a while to bring the aggressiveness down a notch. She seems to be pretty hot-blooded anyway, so I think you’ll always have to watch out for any excesses.’

They both look over at Six for a moment, who’s engaged in a rather intimate neck-scrubbing session with Mako. Aeris plops down in front of the fire and hooks up the pot. While dinner cooks, they go over the smaller incidents of the journey up the mountain, the monsters they fought off, the hazardous crossing of the stream where they almost lost a third of the herd.

‘So back there, I was teaching her to relearn her own natural instincts?’ Sephiroth asks at length. Both of their bowls are empty – they’re sinking their teeth into dessert, which is a pair of apples.

‘Well, she’s so used to clamming up around you that it’s less a question of relearning, and more about giving her permission,’ Aeris explains. ‘When you think about it, we force these animals to do so much for us. We force them to go against their own instincts of survival, and to rein in their own joy for the sake of ‘form’. Especially when it comes to magic – imagine the effort it takes to sit still through explosions and not even turn their heads to look.’

Sephiroth is leaning his elbows against his knees, head tilted to the side as he listens.

‘I just wonder sometimes, you know,’ Aeris says. She picks the brandy out from their bag and starts unscrewing the lid. ‘Why we think it’s our god-given right to warp other living beings like that.’

‘Are you questioning our entire prehistoric tradition of taming wild animals?’

There’s a glint of amusement in his eye when he looks at her. Then he sees the brandy and he raises an eyebrow.

‘You came prepared,’ he states. She hums in agreement as she takes a swig.

‘No but – think about it. The sheer arrogance of it. Thinking we’re so evolved that we’re in our rights to rope these animals into our lifestyle. Or kill them if they won’t comply. We can’t survive out here, so we make them just as helpless and unnatural as we are as a way of controlling them.’ She takes another swig and winces as it goes down. ‘I mean – sometimes I have these clients coming in and they’re all twitchy and crawling with neuroses and they’re wondering why their birds are so damaged and – it’s just glaringly obvious, isn’t it? It’s like they’ve never looked in a mirror and realised the effects their own mental state might have on those who submit to them. And then it’s my job to tell them. Look. Quit your job. Get a divorce. Call a therapist and move away from whatever problem you have. If you keep bending yourself into this state-approved unhappiness then of course you’re going to bend everyone who tries to get close.’

She hands him the bottle as she swallows, wincing. Sephiroth is staring at her steadily as he takes the bottle, eyes glowing as they follow the movements of her mouth.

‘These birds,’ she goes on, ‘they’re so mentally well-balanced before we pen them in and put sandbags on their backs to get them used to carrying weight. When did we decide that their backs were made for carrying us, anyway?’

‘I thought teleology had gone out of fashion.'There’s something softer about his tone, like he fully understands the parallels she’s making.

‘Really?’ Aeris scoffs. ‘I thought you mako people justified your empire by saying  _the planet was made to feed us_.’

‘That’s a different question entirely. We were talking about the effects of human bonding, not consumable resources.’

She looks at him sharply. ‘Doesn’t one lead to the other? Wherever we are on the ladder, we still get chewed up by the great big mouth of human need.’ 

He eyes the bottle for a moment, the neck slick with brandy and Aeris’ saliva.

‘Are you suggesting that you’d rather open all the pens at Bill’s farm and set your birds free?’

‘Most of them wouldn’t survive. But sometimes I want to.’

‘Hmm.’ He presses the bottle neck against his lips and takes a swig. He frowns as it goes down, then clicks his tongue at the aftertaste. ‘Interesting. It starts sweet, then completely scorches you, and then – ’ He savours the aftertaste some more. ‘The sweetness blooms even stronger.’

Aeris finally smiles. ‘It’s my favourite.’

He looks at her, the fire throwing half of his face into shadow.

‘You mentioned earlier, how people don’t realise their importance,’ he murmurs. ‘And now I think you’re the one who doesn’t realise her own importance here.’

Her mouth curls into a self-conscious grin. ‘Sorry, you must think this is all just romantic garbage – ’

‘It’s not garbage. But what would it accomplish to set free the birds who were lost without your help? You seem to forget just how much of a positive influence you have. And how much positive evolution can result from two beings interacting. We all coexist in a planet-wide social network – there is no such thing as the state of _purity_ that you seem to fantasise about. That ideal would only exist in a world where you are all alone.’

Their eyes are strung together and she doesn’t notice him handing back the bottle. The cold glass presses against her knuckles, and she absently takes it from him. When her fingers brush his she swallows past the lump in her throat.

 _But I am,_ she wants to say. _I am all alone._

‘Taken to the extreme, you're saying that you'd like every community to keep to themselves just to reduce the risk of someone getting used for some bigger agenda.’

‘Sometimes I do want that,’ Aeris murmurs. When she leans forwards she realises how light-headed she is with the brandy. The bones in her legs have disappeared. ‘Sometimes I wish they would all just leave me alone.’

It slips out before she can try and mask it under more blatantly transparent bird allegories. She has a vague impression of stripping down, of Sephiroth seeing her just as naked as she was in the bathroom that morning. Then his hand is on hers, turning her palm upwards, and there’s a finger tracing the vein up her forearm. She shivers, looks down. He’s brushing his thumb against the needle mark on the inside of her elbow.

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘More than you know.’

She pulls away, curling her arm against her chest. She wonders for half a second how long he’s known it was there. But the movement destabilizes her, and he catches her around the shoulders.

She doesn’t quite know how it happens but in the next moment he’s got an arm locked around her and she’s leaning against him, head on his shoulder.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she mumbles.

He rumbles something but she’s focusing on how his hand is closing over her shoulder, pressing her against him. His body is so warm. She closes her eyes, thinks stupidly for a moment that she maybe shouldn’t have cut up that lingerie. He smells of vanilla shampoo and sweat and leather and she breathes in deep, savouring how close he’s allowing her to be. His hand starts travelling down her arm. Then it’s on her waist, his fingers pressing into her skin. She makes a frustrated noise - the clouds in her body are beginning to clash into a storm.

‘What are you really afraid of, Aeris?’

It’s far too intimate a question, but she’s too tipsy to mind. Her arm slides around his body, hand hooking around his waist.

‘I’m afraid of losing everything I’ve built.’

‘What are the chances of that happening, realistically?’

‘One hundred percent.’ She feels him tensing slightly, so she adds, ‘Part of the contract. This whole set-up is temporary until ShinRa find the budget to rope me in. I just spend most of my time trying not to think about it.’

They sit for a moment. He’s surprisingly comfortable with all that muscle coiled under his clothes.

‘What about you?’ she asks.

He’s silent for what feels like a long time, his fingers playing with the hem of her shirt.

Then he says, ‘This.’

Aeris draws back a little clumsily. ‘What do you mean?’

There’s a squawk and a series of chirps behind them, and Sephiroth straightens.

‘I can go,’ Aeris mutters.

‘No, it’s just Six. You get to bed. I’ll take care of it.’

‘Just – remember to guide rather than – ’

‘Punish, I know. You’ve been drilling that into my head since day one.’

‘Bed’ being the floor, Aeris somehow manages to slide off the branch and curl up on top of her open sleeping bag. All around her, there are chirps and feathers rustling, the crackle of the fire as it spits embers up into the night sky. She falls back into the sounds, her body weightless. She’s vaguely conscious of Sephiroth folding her sleeping bag over her before shuffling into his own. She licks her lips, tasting apricots, and wonders what it would be like to kiss him with both their mouths slick with brandy.

‘Seph’roth?’

‘Mm?’

‘What did you mean by ‘this’?’

‘Go to sleep, Aeris.’

‘Hmph. G’night.’

‘Goodnight.’

*

 

Bill is suspicious when they get back the next morning. He takes her into the farmhouse and ‘young lady’s her for a good ten minutes while Sephiroth leads their birds into the barn. Aeris stands with her arms crossed.

‘Look, nothing happened, OK? And why the sudden paranoia? I take lots of clients on camping trips.’

‘You think I haven’t noticed how he looks at you?’

She perks up at that. ‘What? How does he look at me?’

Bill clicks his tongue a her. ‘I’m just saying that you should be much more careful.’

‘Bill. I’m not sixteen any more.’

Gradually he relents as she reminds him not to take her for a child. She helps him prepare lunch, and it’s only after three of the stable hands have joined them in the kitchen that Sephiroth makes an appearance. Bill predictably turns a blind eye to him. The boys are having a lively conversation and Aeris catches Sephiroth’s eye as she silently deals out the cutlery. They exchange a smile, and Sephiroth comes behind her to get to the other end of the kitchen, hands lighting on her waist. She still feels the warm weight of them on her even as he heads over to the fridge to get his own meal.

‘What do you mean, Joe wants a gold?’ Bill grumbles at one point. ‘Isn’t he perfectly happy with Teioh?’

Aeris turns around.

‘Yeah. He’s paying big money for a wonderful chocobo to breed Teioh with,’ one of the grooms says as he splats some mash onto his plate. ‘Apparently there’s a wonderful female among this month’s champions that he was set on, but the owner refused to take the bird off the racing track for that long.’

‘Has he mentioned wanting us to catch one for him or is this just some bounty you boys want to chase?’

‘Bounty,’ says another groom with a mouth full of steak.

‘I won’t have you all deserting my farm and getting frostbite trying to chase a goddamn bird up north.’

‘Well, we can always split the profits if we take turns trying to look,’ the third groom offers, and the other two snort at him.

‘Fat chance of that.’

Aeris picks at her nails. This shouldn’t affect her – they’re always talking about their various trips up to the northern continent. But now, with her weaknesses having risen to the surface like bruises – she turns around, going towards the front door.

‘You aren’t eating, Aeris?’ Bill calls after her.

‘I’m not really hungry. I’ll eat a sandwich later.’ 

She notices the inquiring look that Sephiroth gives her. She only shakes her head, and steps out into the sunlight.

*

Paperwork again. It’s difficult to concentrate with her body still itching all over. She’s recovered enough magical energy to cure the needle marks and other gashes in her skin, but it’ll be weeks before she gets rid of that bone-deep disgust that always follows Hojo’s procedures. 

Once she’s finished, she goes to the kitchen to boil the kettle. Outside she sees Sephiroth leading Six back to the barn in the yellow lights that pour down from the barn roofs.  There is the hulk of the airship that they were working with that afternoon, sitting in Six’s paddock. It's outlined in the darkness by bright blue diodes. Six managed to at least stand in there earlier, which was good. Aeris had to persuade him that small steps are just as important as big leaps when he tried to take off with her to pursue the exercise.

She smiles to herself as she pours hot water into her mug. Maybe it was little transparent that she just wanted him to stay longer.  

She’s in her room, sitting on her bed in her pyjamas and unwinding her braid when he comes up the stairs. He’s talking on the phone with someone so she keeps an eye on her open doorway as she hooks her fingers into her hair.

‘… yes. I understand. She explained the situation to me herself.’ Sephiroth paces slowly down the landing as he speaks, coming into her line of sight. ‘It would only be a matter of several days. And they would have no reason to fear with me being present.’

Intrigued, Aeris pushes her now-loose hair over one shoulder and looks over at him. Their eyes meet as he speaks.

‘So you’re saying yes? I can take her up there?’

Aeris frowns as he casually steps into her doorway, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe.

‘Yes. Three days. …I will, though I doubt the monsters up there will pose problems for either of us, Tseng.’

He’s still looking at her steadily. The corners of her mouth pull up into a smile. She gets up from her bed, daring to hope.

‘I think you underestimate her,’ he murmurs. Aeris brings her hands up to cover her toothy grin. ‘Thank you, Tseng. And the board can mind their own business. I’m on vacation.’

As soon as he’s flipped his phone shut, she crashes against him, arms winding around his body. After a few seconds he responds in kind, hands sinking into her thick lengths of hair.

‘You’re really taking me up there?’ she mumbles into his chest. ‘To find a bird for Joe?’

‘I hope you know where to find appropriate accommodation, first.’

She laughs. ‘The chocobos are far from any town. There’s a hunting cabin that the boys use.’

‘Well, at least it’s better than tents.’

She settles against him for a moment. Her stomach is flat against his, breasts crushed against his chest without the stiff layer of her bra in the way. She’s gripping his shirt so he won’t notice how her hands are shaking.

‘Why, though?’ she asks. ‘I hope you don’t feel like you owe me anything.’

She looks up at him. Their faces are so close, she can barely breathe.

‘"If someone is afraid, then move their feet,"’ he quotes her with a grin.

She would’ve smiled at the reiteration of her own methods if his lips hadn’t been within biting distance. She looks down at them. Her heartbeat is drowning out every other sound.

‘Aeris?’

‘Yeah?’

His mouth parts, letting out an unsteady exhale.

‘Are you aware of what you’re doing right now?’

She smiles and raises her chin. ‘Yes.’

She has to strain on her tiptoes to kiss him. When their lips meet he makes a kind of confused sound, eyes burning into hers instead of closing. She waits for him to push her away. He doesn’t. She kisses him again with the tips of her lips, not wanting to rush him. His mouth is dry and she feels his hands tightening in her hair as she flicks her tongue against him. Then he opens his mouth, and their tongues coil together in a hot slippery mess. Aeris’s knees are about to buckle. She’s been kissed before plenty of times but never like this – never with this kind of urgency, this kind of dizzying need. His fingers are trembling as he strokes her jawline, and then he breaks away, eyes angled somewhere next to her chin.

‘I’m sorry.'

‘Don’t apologise. I started it.’  

His hands grip her shoulders and then he’s peeled her off him, forcing a cold slab of air between their bodies.

‘I don’t – do this,’ he attempts. Then while she stands there trying very hard not to pull him into her room or maybe yell at him to make up his mind, he lets go of her and steps back into the landing. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow at noon,’ he informs the floorboards. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

It’s difficult to stay angry at him when her mouth is wet with his saliva and tingling from how his teeth gripped her. She closes her door on him and slips under her covers with a frustrated sigh. Staring up at the ceiling, she listens to the sounds of him undressing in his room, belt buckle clattering on the floor, bed springs groaning under his weight. She slides a hand between her thighs, imagines his mouth, still raw and shiny from her own kisses, and digs her head back into the cushions.   

*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should've known that the infamous 'one last chapter' wouldn't let me contain it to the appropriate wordcount. 12k words later and I am finally done. :'D It completely ran away with me (again) so I hope you enjoy these last three parts!

*

Aeris is holding onto her mug of hot chocolate with both hands, looking like an Upworld child about to be whisked away on her school’s first winter vacation. Sephiroth is sitting at the table with her for the first time. Perhaps there’s something about sharing a kiss goodnight that compels a man to share at least breakfast with you, too – but in any case, neither of them are mentioning it.

Aeris is telling him about the slums instead. ‘They used to roll out artificial snow on the rooftops when I was little. In my neighbourhood, anyway. You know – these big white blankets that you nail down? Before the end of the season they’d always get stolen and used for insulation or sleeping bags by the scavengers.’

Sephiroth swirls his coffee. ‘So you’ve never seen real snow?’

‘Well – snow would trickle down from holes in the plate. So you’d get stalactites and brown slush here and there. But snowfall… no, I’ve never seen it. And it’s too warm out here for anything else than frozen dew and hail in the winter.’

‘You’d better pack the warmest clothing you have,’ Sephiroth tells her. ‘The north may be beautiful, but it’s unforgiving. You’ve got to think of snow as a deathtrap rather than something to admire.’

Aeris looks at Sephiroth’s lean arms, his straight-backed military posture that he always slips into, his large hands that are calloused from sword training.

‘I’ve always wondered why the Planet likes to dress danger up in beauty,’ she muses.

He’s seen her looking. He smiles. ‘I think it has a pretty cynical sense of humour.’

 *

After breakfast, Aeris rummages in the attic for the warm clothes that the boys use. She chucks down fur-lined cloaks and woolly jumpers and massive socks. They both sort through the pile and Sephiroth comments on how inefficient and bulky the garments are, how there are silky fabrics manufactured in Midgar that allow for optimal thermal regulation. But then Aeris brings rabbit fur up to his face and rubs his cheeks with it and he shuts up, eyes going wide.

‘It’s so soft,’ he mutters, and Aeris laughs.

‘If this isn’t enough then surely we can get some stuff from the locals.’

Sephiroth insists on boxing up prepared meals and snacks, saying something about the body needing extra fuel in such temperatures. Bill tells them that the cabin is usually stocked with cans and pickled foods and pots, so they don’t have to worry about riding with cutlery clattering around in their bags. And surprisingly, the boys only give Aeris minimal lip about stealing their bounty. They know just how envious she’s always been of their trips up north.

 

Just before noon, they’re tacking up their birds in the barn and Aeris sinks her fingers thoughtfully into Mako’s thick down.

‘Are the chocobos going to be OK?’ she calls down the aisle in Sephiroth’s direction.

She hears a chirp from Six, and the sound of a stall door opening.

‘Six will be,’ he calls back. ‘And you told me that Mako had experience traveling up and down the Midgarian mountains, so he can already withstand a certain degree of cold.’ There are steps coming towards her, a tap of heels and the heavy clink of chocobo talons. ‘It’s really about how _long_ they can withstand the cold up there. When my men brought their regular birds on missions up north, they always had to plan warm-up stops.’

Aeris looks over her stall door as he approaches. She bites her lip when she sees him – he’s wearing one of the sweeping black cloaks they found in the attic, shoulders hugged by dark wolf fur. His hair spills over the fur in long white lines and she fights the urge to look him up at down – he seems to be wearing leather and belts and _Gaia_ this is going to be a very long trip.

‘Mountain chocobos are built for harsher climates,’ he goes on like she isn’t openly staring at him, ‘so I think Mako could stay out for four, maybe five hours at a time. Plenty of time for chocobo hunting in any case.’

She nods and looks him in the eye to stop herself from ogling. He smiles at her.

‘Ready?’

 *

They board the small disused airship that they’d been working with. There are five slots for birds, so Aeris busies herself with putting their chocobos away while Sephiroth goes to the cockpit. She stays by Six while the engine whirrs to life  to make sure she won't start shrieking all over the place. It's risky to go ahead and do this when she's only just beginning to feel comfortable, but Aeris has faith in the headstrong old bird. Six stares at her with wide, wet eyes as Aeris hums the Wutain lullaby, clearly holding onto every syllable. When the airship slowly rises, Six squawks and darts her glossy head around but Aeris persistently strokes her until she’s huffing and chirping and not in any danger of barreling into her small human companion.

There are no windows down here and Aeris wishes she could watch the ocean scroll underneath them. She sticks with Six until the airship has stabilized and they’re flying flat and straight. Aeris distances herself slowly, going out into the corridor and back in again to test Six’s resilience. Gradually Six seems less bothered about being left alone, so Aeris finally steals away down the corridor. Her pulse is a drumbeat in her chest as she leaps up the rickety metal staircase. She’s in the air. She’s going further than she’s ever gone and she’s _alone_. Without Tseng, without any kind of surveillance.      

She finds the cockpit, ducks into it. Sephiroth is in the pilot’s seat, one hand on the throttle levers, the other held up over the holoscreens in front of him. Aeris hardly notices him – there is a massive window ahead and beyond is the sky, clear and limitless. They clear the coastline and soar over the ocean, flying so high that all Aeris can see is a rippling blue plane streaked with white crests. Aeris holds onto Sephiroth’s seat as he brings up a map on his holoscreen.

‘Want to see our trajectory?’

Giddy as ever, Aeris leans over his shoulder to look at the ghostly green map. There is a yellow line snaking up from their location towards the coordinates of Bill’s hunting cabin. Sephiroth’s long fingers play over the screen, zooming out so she can see the shapes of the continents. There are yellow strings all over the world. He explains that it’s an online network of current aircraft trajectories, included in every airship’s navicomputer so the pilots can avoid collisions. Most of the trajectories originate from Midgar, marking the centre of the web. Aeris mentions how lonely their own trajectory is, and he tells her it’s because nobody in their right minds would want to go north unless it’s for a mission. She laughs – there are no words to express how it feels to be going up there, after all this time. _Finally._ The vaguely chocobo-shaped continent floats in front of her and she reaches over Sephiroth’s shoulder, poking at the holoscreen to try and zoom in on the different settlements. Little photos pop up every time she clicks a place of interest.

‘If you’re going to lean over me like that I can’t guarantee a smooth journey,’ Sephiroth says when she gets a bit too enthusiastic.

‘Oh, sorry!’

He looks over his shoulder at her and she has to tell herself that it’ll probably be just as disruptive if she kisses him as hard as she wants to. Instead she winds her arms around his shoulders from behind and stares ahead at the clear blue sky. He takes a moment to relax into her embrace.

‘Thank you so much for this.’

 ‘We’ll probably arrive in thirty minutes,’ he informs her, his voice a little huskier than before.

‘Oh, I’m in no hurry.’

‘Mm.’ He turns his head, silver bangs sliding along her arm. ‘Maybe I can take the long way around.’

 *

They eventually make their landing behind the hunting cabin. It’s a ramshackle wooden box sitting snugly at the bottom of a snowy ravine, with a mountain range looming behind it. Way up above sits the largest village in the entire Northern Continent. The Icicle Inn. Sephiroth mentioned it when they were looking at it from the sky, and Aeris couldn’t quite remember why it sounded so familiar. The boys usually spoke about “going up the mountain” when getting supplies – they never really mentioned any settlement names, she’s sure of that. But when she exits the airship there’s snow crunching under her boots and white trees bristling all around her and she stops thinking.

She walks towards the cabin as though in a dream. There are tiny white specks floating all around her, tracing slow spirals. They settle in her hair, freckle her cheeks, melt on her lips like sugar. There is no wind, no birdsong, no voices or clanking electronics. It’s so quiet that she can hear her own breaths rushing in and out of her. She takes exaggeratedly slow steps so she can listen to each patch of snow crunching one after the other.

She hears Sephiroth approaching her slowly, feet piercing the snow crust. She turns around and finds no words to say to him – she can only look up at him with wide, wondering eyes. He returns her gaze, his expression soft.

‘Does it live up to your expectations?’

She smiles. ‘I didn’t even know what to expect. It’s a whole other world up here. And there’s _snow_.’ She lifts her arms up, making herself bigger just so the snow will cover more of her. 'Do you remember your first snowfall?'

‘I believe I do,’ he muses.

‘How old were you?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘Was it up here, too?’

He pauses, brow twitching as though the memories have stopped being pleasant.

’No, it wasn’t.’ And then; 'It was a different time.'

 She reins in her curiosity, bringing her gloved hands together and watching the snow cover her palms.

‘I never thought I’d get to see this,’ she says. ‘In my whole life. I never thought…’

Warmth closes around the back of her neck, and when she turns around his hand slides to cup her face. Tenderly, he rubs the melted snow over her lower lip with his thumb. His eyes have a haunting glow, like something about her reminds him of himself and the more she looks at him, the larger the lump grows in her throat.

‘Sephiroth, I – ’

Her voice trails away uselessly. He’s leaning closer. She can only blink as he presses his lips against a fresh snowflake on the corner of her mouth. There’s a sting of cold wrapped in the heat of his kiss as the snowflake melts. She sinks her hands into his hair, feeling for his neck. Everything is cold except for his mouth.

He breaks away far too soon to her liking and she clings to him, mumbling, ‘I thought you didn’t do this?’  

Sephiroth only smiles.  

‘We should get the birds,’ he says.

 *

They lead their chocobos down the airship ramp and into the cabin. The inside is made to privilege heat; the wide entrance has hay in the corners and pegs for tack, while the main room contains two double beds facing a wood burning stove. Pushed in the far corner is a table with a single rickety chair, positioned under the only window. The doorway separating both rooms has a waist-high grating rather than a door so that birds can share the heat without coming in and trampling the beds. And at the back of the main room, a battered old door leads to the storage. Aeris and Sephiroth both tie their birds at either end of the entrance and head back out to fetch their things from the ship.

Once they’ve settled in, Sephiroth spreads out a map of the area on the table and they stand over it to plan their afternoon. Aeris points to the area between the glacier and the jagged peninsula where wonderful chocobos are meant to be found. According to the stable hands, the terrain sloping down from the glacier is treacherous, with crevasses gaping under thin layers of snow. Sephiroth mentions how they can rely on their chocobos’ intuition and stick to the wooded areas to avoid the problem, and Aeris just keeps nodding, looking far too excited.

‘You don’t appear appropriately scared by the prospect of hurtling down a bottomless chasm,’ Sephiroth deadpans.

‘I _lived_ in a bottomless chasm for most of my life, remember,’ she says. ‘And you don’t look appropriately scared, either.’

‘I’ve rescued men who’ve fallen down there before,’ he says. ‘It’s simple enough with the right summons to pick them out of there, and the right buffs preemptively cast. With the right materia you can forgo standard equipment or security measures that would slow down the process.’

She’s still nodding along quite happily so he looks at her pointedly and adds, ‘As long as you follow your trail leader's orders to the letter.’  

‘Sure!’

He sighs.

   *

They decide on scouting the nearest section of the area of interest to see if they can spot chocobo tracks while the skies are clear. Aeris wraps up in a big wool cloak and leads Mako outside after tacking up. She squints up at the sun, her cheeks already stinging with the cold. The landscape is frozen still all around her, white against blue, and it’s difficult to stick the label _deathtrap_ onto something so glittery – but then again, she’s been in Wall Market enough to understand the exercise. She swings up onto Mako’s back and takes the reins as Sephiroth comes out of the cabin with Six.

‘Here.’

She looks over and he chucks her a coiled up stack of rope. She catches it, hooks it onto her saddle. He hauls himself up on Six’s back and walks ahead with her, black cloak covering the bird’s rump. For a moment the kingly illusion is almost complete. He looks like northern royalty with his snowy white hair falling down his back. Aeris asks Mako for a trot so she can race him while they’re still on even terrain, and she’s laughing like a little girl as both birds fly over glittery white plains.

 

The afternoon flies by as they make their way towards the chocobo territories. They push back wolves and monsters that have the gall to close in on them, duck their way through gaunt silver forests, skirt around massive gashes in the ground. Aeris peeks down into the deep blue depths whenever they pass an open crevasse – it’s scarier now that she can imagine herself falling down _there_. Sometimes the walls are made of jagged black rock - other times they're sheer blue ice with no footholds, no shelves to catch herself on, nothing. Once they’ve turned around to make the journey back before nightfall, they skirt around one of the icy crevasses again and Aeris looks down into it. For a moment she thinks it must be a trick of the light, but there seems to be – something down there. In the depths. She stops Mako and squints down. There! Something moving. Some kind of… light. She leans over Mako’s side, heart drumming in her chest.

 ‘You shouldn’t stop so close to it,’ Sephiroth calls over at her, trotting to meet her.

‘I know, but – I saw something.’

_Daughter._

The voice eels its way into her head. She looks harder, the hairs on her arms bristling. Six treads cautiously up to her and Sephiroth reaches to lay a hand on Mako’s reins.

‘The lifestream is particularly active in these parts,’ he tells her in a low voice, the kind he uses to calm Six down. ‘Don’t let yourself be lured in.’

‘No, it isn’t just that,’ Aeris says. ‘I know what lifestream feels like. There’s… a whole personality down there. Somebody. Not just a rush of souls.’

Sephiroth lowers his chin, putting on his disapproving face. ‘Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. We aren’t going down there, whatever you think you saw.’

 

Ten minutes later, Sephiroth has cast Float on the both of them and they’ve got their ropes tied around sturdy pine trees as they steadily make their way down the crevasse. The birds are also tied to trees, huddling together and shining with the powerful Wall spell Sephiroth cast on them. Aeris’ feet glide over ice – with the Float spell she’s practically levitating, moving a fraction of her usual body weight around, and the feeling is too strange and wonderful to allow for fear.

Sephiroth spends most of the descent reminding Aeris that there’s no way of predicting the levels that the lifestream can rise and that they shouldn’t spend more than five minutes down there. Steadily the blue walls darken as they drop further. There are crags and caverns beginning to open around them. One of them is spilling red light. Aeris points to it – it’s directly under their feet. All they have to do is swing into it and land weightlessly, their ropes dangling down the entrance after untying them.

‘This is a bad idea,’ Sephiroth mutters. The light is painting him red from his hair to his boots. The source is ahead, beyond a curve in the tunnel, and for all his grumbling he seems just as eager as she is to advance towards it. The light drifts around them, and Sephiroth lets it play between his fingers as they walk further in.

‘Aeris.’

She glances over her shoulder at him. 

‘The light is curving.’

She frowns down at the way the shadows shiver around his tendons, and then tries carding her own fingers through the dense red light.

‘This is concentrated lifestream,’ he murmurs.

‘Concentrated? How can you tell?’

‘Regular lifestream forms much tighter coils than this. It’ll start getting into our heads if we don’t hurry up.’

They make their way down the glistening corridor. The red light dances on the slick ice walls, and Aeris is hypnotised by how it ripples if she looks at it hard enough. Sephiroth pulls her along when she slows down.

‘Stand still down here and you’ll turn to ice yourself.’

They turn the corner. Ahead, there is a pillar of ice. Something is inside it. Aeris glances at Sephiroth, her pulse thrumming under her skin. She reaches out a hand and he takes it. They walk towards the pillar until they’re close enough to see the approximate shape of it.

It’s humanoid. The arms are crossed over the chest, and a solid red ball is floating in front of its heart. The red light is passing through the ball, piercing the body through and through. 

‘It looks like mako fountain,’ Sephiroth says.

‘A horizontal one?’

‘I’ve never seen one like this before, but given the non-liquid nature of the lifestream, it isn’t impossible. It looks like it’s crystallizing into a summon, hence the red colour...’

He continues explaining but Aeris has blinked herself into a scene of chaos. The pillar is gone, the cavern is gone – she’s in a long white corridor, glass shattered all around her. Her feet are stinging with glass shards and she’s growling a low, terrified growl. There are people in white coats ahead, an alarm screaming in her ears and someone shouting _don’t harm him, don’t harm him_ and her hand comes out, she’s tearing fire out of the men’s stomachs – and then Sephiroth’s hands are on her shoulders. She blinks back to reality, mouth open, hands shaking.

‘It’s starting,’ he breathes. He looks like he’s been somewhere unpleasant in the last few seconds, too. ‘Let’s grab the summon materia and get out of here.’

‘Did you - ?’ _Did you get in my head, too?_ She wants to ask him but they have to hurry up. They stride up to the pillar as fast as the snow-covered ice floor will allow them to. The shape is definitely human, though something seems to be sprouting out of its head.

_Daughter._

Again the voice echoes in her mind. Aeris steps up to the figure in the ice, her eyes wide. It’s a woman. She’s decked in long white robes bearing silver glyph patterns. The style has all the strangeness and simplicity of antique threadwork. A high headdress rises from her head and her eyes are closed, the rest of her face hidden behind a veil.

Aeris swallows hard.

‘Either that’s a corpse, or the materia is projecting some kind of image of the summon,’ Sephiroth mutters. ‘I’ve never seen a naturally occurring summon before, so don’t take my word for it.’

‘I didn’t think materia could form from human souls.’

‘It can’t. At least, it shouldn’t.’ Sephiroth raises one gloved hand. ‘Materia is formed out of the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients.’

‘I know that,’ Aeris huffs. She watches as he spreads his fingers over the ice pillar. ‘But if she’s not human, then…’

_You know the answer to that question, child._

They both stare up at the woman’s face for a few long seconds.

And then frozen eyes snap open.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- For some reason the Float spell does not actually exist in FFVII, but since it exists in all the other FF games (and seeing how the characters all seem to fly around in AC/CC) I thought I'd include it.  
> \- This is all pure self-indulgence of course, but if any of the winter mountaineering stuff sounds a bit too unrealistic even with all the conveniences of magic, please give me a shout!


	7. Chapter 7

*

They’re pulled into each other. Memories triangulate, flooding each other’s minds. Aeris sees lab rooms, jungles, men in white coats and a kid leaning over a sink, staring at himself in the mirror. White hair scraped up in a ponytail. Eyes glowing an unnatural colour. He can’t be older than eight and he’s got a sword in his hand, ash on his fingertips, blood covering his mouth. Hand up in the air, he summons dragons out of the sky and tears the earth apart. Syringes, tubes, eyes closing and face lifting up to the sun. He twists and turns, he’s fourteen and there’s a monster under the bed, a woman with red eyes and silver hair and a body turned inside out but nobody believes him.

Then the woman with the red eyes is all Aeris and Sephiroth can see and they’re pulled back through mountainous landscapes and there’s a glittering city made of seashells, there is the woman with the red eyes wrapped up in beautiful skin and a winning smile and nobody believes she’s a monster either. There’s a palace rising against a clear blue sky, incense in the corridors, people shuffling with their eyes down. A temple opens around them, and the woman in the white robes is there, hands out as she stands in an archway made of vines. Someone is laying on a slab next to her. She leans over, breathes life into him. His skin is riddled with black marks that won’t go away.

The sky goes dark. Everything is warped, everything has turned into a mockery of itself. There is a hoard of tall nomads, weapons branded, hands open as the air bristles with magic. They are the last ones standing. The city is in ruins. Lost. They are bringing the might of the Planet down on the monster with the red eyes. They fight until only a handful of them are left.

The woman in white stands before a kneeling line of men and women. She bestows gifts onto them all. Aeris lifts her head. She is part of the line. The priestess’s hands come around her neck, fastening a carved jade glyph around her throat. Her eyes are a deep green, looking down at Aeris with a motherly tenderness.

_You are one of us. You may think you carry the weight of responsibility on your own. But that isn’t true. We are here. We have always been here. And we always will be._

They fall into her life. The orphaned baby wrapped up in a scientist’s arms, the labs, the train station steps. She’s screaming for help and Sephiroth can see all of it. Tearing the floorboards out of the abandoned church. Digging a person-sized hole with Elmyra’s help. Her mother, wrapped in a white shroud, curled up in the earth. Aeris kneeling by the grave, talking to someone who will never really be there again. Then, flowers growing. Biscuit tins and books on Elmyra’s table. The pursuits by the Turks. Tseng, holding her down in a fancy hotel room, lips against her neck. Her lying down in the sterilized white chair, accepting the oxygen mask. Beady black eyes watching her fall into unconsciousness.

‘ _Sephiroth – ’_

They whir in and out of chronology, in and out of each other. Aeris sees Sephiroth again, except this time he’s marching down the aisle of a run-down prison and she’s never smelt such a horrendous stench before. He’s interrogating prisoners. He’s standing and watching while others cut and penetrate and burn when the answers don’t come quickly. There’s a Wutain woman with red lipstick telling him sweet nothings but he sees right through her. He’s sitting at a desk, stamping his approval for her to be brought out to the shooting yard with the rest of the spies – he’s in a bathtub, looking at his clean white palms – in a sterilized white chair, accepting the oxygen mask –

‘Sephiroth!’

The name bursts out of her. Reality reels back into focus and she’s on the floor, hoisting herself up. Sephiroth is kneeling in front of the pillar, hands still fastened to the ice, eyes wide and staring at nothing. Aeris grabs his shoulder and has to shake him before he looks over at her.

‘We have to go,’ she gasps.

He takes a few seconds before nodding. She helps him up to his feet, and they stumble their way back to the entrance without looking back at the woman in white.

‘What about the materia?’ Aeris asks him as they tie their ropes around themselves.

‘Forget it,’ Sephiroth says firmly. ‘Concentrate on the here and now.’

When they get back up to the surface, the sun has hardly moved even though they’ve been dragged through entire lifetimes. Their chocobos chirp at them as they crawl away from the edge of the crevasse. Aeris lies in the snow for a moment, panting. She looks over at Sephiroth, who’s kneeling while he gets his own breath back and unties his rope. She isn’t sure what to say, but her face breaks into a smile before she can stop it – something like relief at being alive, and of having potentially seen one of her kind. She can hardly dare to believe it. It seems far more likely that the woman wasn’t Cetran, that maybe she was just some lost traveler from a much earlier Northern settlement, or perhaps even a humanoid summon like Shiva… but Aeris wants so badly to trust her intuition. Almost as soon as her rope is untied, she wants to hurl herself back down there just to take another look, just to stand in the company of someone who could’ve been – who might’ve been – !

She turns to see if Sephiroth is as excited as she is, but he just looks at her tiredly and rakes his hand through his hair to get it out of his face.

‘Remind me never to listen to a single one of your wonderful ideas again,’ he says, and the exhilaration bursts out of her in the form of laughter.

 *

When they get back to the cabin, the sun is a glaring orange ball on the horizon. They stow away their birds, and Aeris insists on going out and cutting wood for their wood burning stove. She exits the cabin with Sephiroth still smirking at her willfulness. Logs are piled up against the cabin wall, so she brushes snow off of the axe and brings some logs over to the stump. Her cheeks and nose are red with the cold, but she can’t feel it once she’s cut through ten logs. She’s wading in her sweaty clothes when she comes back in. Sephiroth has prepared dinner, and the chocobos are chomping away happily on their greens – she smiles at the domesticity of the scene after the afternoon’s wild ride.

They get a fire going and sit on their beds, bowls in hand. They haven’t said a word about the memories they shared – the journey was spent speculating about the probability of the woman being Cetran, and what would happen if she were disinterred. Sephiroth concluded that he hoped Hojo would never clap eyes on her while he lived, whatever her ancestry might be. Aeris shovels the chicken salad into her mouth while Sephiroth puts his empty bowl away and leans back against his cushions, book in hand. She wonders if he’s only pretending to read so he won’t have to answer any inappropriate questions.

How can she even open the discussion? _So, you were a child soldier? When were you first dispatched to Wutai? Who are your parents?_ It doesn’t exactly make good casual conversation. She casts around for a moment before saying,

‘I may have some more questions.’

Sephiroth grins at his book.

‘So do I,’ he says. ‘But I’m not entirely sure you’d be comfortable answering them.’

‘Lifestream hopping isn’t the most conventional way of getting to know someone,’ Aeris agrees, and he glances over at her. The amusement has faded from his face.

‘If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of staying in a room with me now that you’ve seen those things, I could take you back – ’

‘No.’ She says it as firmly as she can. He waits for her to elaborate, looking doubtful. She’s never seen him like this. Vulnerable, almost. ‘To me, you’re still the man who came to my farm two weeks ago. Everyone has their baggage. I knew which side of the Wutai war you were on – it’s not something I choose to dwell on.’

He’s looking steadily at her. ‘Why not?’

‘You’ve had opportunities to grow since then. I don’t think the person you were during the war is the same as the one you are now. Nobody should be defined by things they regret.’

‘Hmm. And what about those who can’t find purpose outside of the warzone?’

Aeris puts her bowl in her lap. ‘That isn’t your case, surely?’

He thinks for a moment. ‘I grew up with the war, as you saw. For a long time being dispatched equated freedom, so yes, I looked forward to it. You probably understand – being able to travel makes you forget the terms imposed upon you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But back then I obeyed ShinRa without question. Nowadays, if I were asked to go to Wutai for the same purpose… I would dig in my heels. Once you know your own worth, there are plenty of ways to use it against them.’

Aeris smiles. ‘I suppose I did the same thing when I asked for more territory. But does that mean you can have your own say now? Do you really have more freedom than before?’

Sephiroth lets out a sigh. ‘The only way I could obtain the kind of freedom I want would be to defect.’

The word drops like a bomb. Surprisingly, Aeris straightens up and claps her hands together. ‘Oh, let me come with you in that case!’

A smile tugs at his mouth at her reaction. ‘I suppose this cabin is roomy enough. We could make it our base of operations.’

‘We have the supplies, we have the birds and the airship. We could travel. Go wherever we want.’

He gets up, holds out a hand so she can give him her bowl. Their fingers brush and she tilts her head back, letting herself get caught in his gaze.

‘It’s tempting,’ he muses. ‘But you’d have to accept to visit warmer climates. The north isn’t where I’d want to spend all my time.’

He disappears into the storage room to do the dishes. Aeris is grinning stupidly to herself as she gets lost in the fantasy, stripping her sweaty clothes off. She’s sitting in her bra, wiping herself down with scented wipes when he comes back in. Always the consummate gentleman, he heads over to the wood burning stove to stoke the fire while she unclasps her bra and reaches for her pyjamas. She’s acutely aware of the warm air on her naked breasts, and she looks at Sephiroth’s broad back, the way his hair is curled over one shoulder. She bites her lip. She wants him to turn around so badly. But he resolutely stands by the fire, so she tugs her pyjama top on. 

‘I never knew there were flowers growing in the slums,’ he murmurs out of the blue.

She smiles, though his words tug at her heartstrings. ‘If Tseng is still taking care of them properly, they should still be there. You could always visit them.’

He turns around. She’s undoing her braid, so his eyes follow the movements of her fingers for a few seconds.

‘Do you miss that place?’ he asks softly.

She thinks for a moment. Then she shakes her head.

‘I have all the flowers I need now,’ she says. There’s a part of his question that she isn’t answering, so she adds, ‘It’s empty anyway. The people I’ve lost aren’t lying under a clump of earth. They’re everywhere around us. The lifestream carries them further than you and I could ever go.’

Sephiroth is silent as he mulls over her words. Then he murmurs, ‘That’s a comforting thought.’

She wonders if he’s digging up his own dead as he drifts over to his bed and starts undressing. Dutifully she turns around as he strips. When she glances over at him again he’s sitting up with his duvet over his legs, bare-chested, tying his hair into a ponytail.

‘Get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow,’ he tells her tiredly.

She pulls her duvet closer, allowing herself to watch him as he pummels his cushion and gets comfortable. She feels so safe with him, even in the most inhospitable territory in the Planet. Then he’s lying on his side with his back to her, and the warm glow of the fire envelops them both as she tries to relax.

 *

Hours later, she’s still awake. Something about the memories that the afternoon stirred up, and the fact that it’s snowing outside and the moon is full and shining. Aeris sits at the table, staring up at how the snowflakes glitter in the moonlight. There is the occasional wolf howl, and she thinks about the first night she slept outside of Midgar, how terrified she was of the outside world. She half wants to sneak into Sephiroth’s bed just to feel protected from the monsters. There are other reasons, of course. Nighttime brings back all the sensations he's given her and she’s trying to pluck up the courage to bring them up with him. Maybe finally get a straight answer regarding what he really wants. 

‘What are you doing up?’

Sephiroth’s muffled voice emerges. Aeris looks over her shoulder.

‘Can’t sleep. It’s too beautiful out here.’

‘You’ll have plenty of time to admire it tomorrow,’ Sephiroth mumbles. ‘Get to bed.’

She gets up and goes to sit on her mattress, facing him. He still has his back to her, the duvet swept down to his waist so that she can see his impressively carved shoulder muscles. She takes a breath. If she wants an answer then she should just do it. Now. Ask him as plainly as she can just so that this goddamned tension will be dealt with, one way or the other.

‘My bed’s cold,’ she attempts.

He lifts his head to glance over his shoulder. For a moment she’s burning with embarrassment at how transparent she’s being. But he only throws an arm behind himself lazily, grabs the duvet and pulls it back.

Biting her lip, Aeris accepts the somewhat sullen invitation and plops down on his mattress, setting her cushion down beside his. She digs her cold feet into the duvet and pulls it up over her shoulders, snuggling underneath. Immediately his body heat spreads over her like sinking into a hot bath. She shivers with delight.

There’s something very still about his body, like his breathing has gone quite shallow while he feels her taking up space beside him. Then her feet accidentally brush his naked legs and he all but yelps.

‘Shiva incarnate, your feet are _ice cubes_.’

‘Sorry!’

‘Put them away or I’ll kick you out.’

‘OK, OK.’

She turns her back to him, curling up, and they stay like that for a good half hour. Aeris is completely alert. It’s like the whole world has suddenly sharpened its resolution. Her ears catch the quiet rustling of hay as the birds twitch in their sleep. The snap and crackle of the embers in the stove. Sephiroth’s low breathing. Whenever he shifts she catches his scent, and the deeper she burrows under the duvet, the more wrapped up she is in the heady masculinity of it. She presses her back against his, just to reiterate the question that she’s sure he understood when she asked to _sleep_ in his _bed_ while they’re _alone_ and – Gaia, if she tries to be any more obvious she’ll soon be throwing rope around his neck and pulling him between her thighs.

When nothing happens she waits for his breathing to deepen, as a signal to give up. But he seems just as wide awake as she is. Like he’s deciding between yes or no.

At one point, he moves away and turns onto his back. She tenses, waiting. After what seems like forever he finally rolls over onto his side, facing her back. She drags her lower lip between her teeth and gnaws on it as she feels his breath on her neck. Then his fingers are raking her hair away from her ear, trailing down her nape as he tucks it away.

‘Are you still awake?’

She nods.

‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

The kind of question that needs to be asked in the middle of the night? This should be interesting.

‘Sure.’

He waits a moment. Then his fingers find her shoulder, and they’re traveling lightly down her arm as though feeling for the end of the sleeve. Aeris’ fists clench under her pillow, eyes staring straight ahead as the goosebumps prick her skin.

‘You and Tseng… is that… ongoing?’

She smiles. If he’s asking that then he definitely understood the question.

 ‘No,’ she says. ‘No, me and Tseng were never really _ongoing_ at all. If anything happened, it was a long time ago and it was kind of. A series of mistakes. Water under the bridge, really.’

His fingers drop down from her arm, apparently finding the dip of her waist far more interesting. They follow it down, finding the pyjama top all crinkled at the junction. There is a strip of bare skin just above the waistband of her bottoms. Aeris lets out a slow breath as his fingertips ghost over it.

‘What about you?’ she asks. ‘Was there anyone asides from that – woman?’

Warmth spreads over her belly as his hand slides under her pyjama top. She presses her thighs together, trying not to pant with the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

‘There was no woman,’ he says. ‘There’s never been anyone.’

Aeris surreptitiously moves under the duvet so that her back leans against the warm hard length of his body. He threads his fingers between hers as he locks his arm around her waist, accepting the contact and settling against her. His breath flares down on her neck, sending shivers down her spine.

For a moment they lie there wrapped up in each other’s body heat, Aeris’ mind swimming at the closeness they’re sharing. Then Sephiroth murmurs,

‘People’s hands on me used to feel like shattering glass.’

Aeris frowns. ‘Did it ever stop feeling like that?’

 ‘It stopped with you.’

Oh. Aeris rolls over so she can look at him. His hand slides over her belly as she twists. His heavy-lidded eyes glow in the dark, and there are strands of hair falling across them. She reaches up to tuck them behind his ear with a nervous smile.

‘Can I ask you a personal question, too?’ she whispers.

‘Go ahead.’

‘When I kissed you – was that the first time? For you?’

‘…Yes.’

‘You’d never been kissed before?’

‘No.’

‘ _Really?_ ’

‘Gaia, do you have to stretch this out?’

Aeris giggles. Then she traces the line of his jaw, looking down at his mouth.

‘How was it for you?’ she asks.

‘Well, it was – surprising, to say the least.’

‘But you did enjoy it, right?’

He smirks. ‘Do I really have to answer that?’

She turns to face him, hooking a leg around his under the duvet. He lets her pull his thigh between hers, and for a moment they breathe the same bubble of air, lips at a hair’s breadth from each other.

‘No shattering glass?’ she whispers.

‘No. Nothing like that.’

He presses his thigh further against her crotch – and she gives a tiny whine, eyes drifting shut. There are fingers tangling in long hair and his mouth finds hers, hot and insistent. She loses all thought processes as he whirls his tongue around hers. He tastes of mint and she tastes like cinnamon and they’re momentarily glued together, moving as though it isn’t enough to be crushed against one another – it isn’t enough until they merge.

She’s panting when they break it off, sliding her open mouth against his. His hand is still frozen on her waist, so she nudges it upwards through the pyjamas. Hesitantly his fingers travel up her body, thumb finding the swell of her breast. She closes her eyes as his thumb moves back and forth against it. Then his long fingers slide around her nipple, cupping her properly, and when he squeezes she abandons all restraint and moans into his neck.

‘Is that too rough?’ he murmurs, and she can’t help laughing.

‘No, no, just – keep going.’

So he does and she’s a wriggling whimpering mess and his arm is getting covered in red nail marks. If she so much as grinds against his thigh she will probably burst, so she pushes him down and straddles him so she can move away from any direct stimulation. She can feel the rock-hard outline of him under his pants, so she raises her hips to stop herself from grinding against him shamelessly. He lies there and stares her up and down, like he wants to commit every inch of her body to memory. The moonlight frames her long flowing hair, and she would’ve looked queenly if she hadn’t been wearing chocobo-dotted pyjamas.

‘I don’t want to rush you,’ she whispers.  

He smiles. ‘Come here.’

He pulls her down to taste her lips again, her hair falling past her shoulders and curling on the mattress around them. His hands drift up her back, pushing up her pyjama top and coming around to cup each breast and Aeris can’t help it – she rolls her hips, moulding herself over the stiff outline of his cock.

He gasps against her mouth at the contact. She’s hot and yielding against him and it’s _nothing_ like his own touch, it’s so foreign and he’s aching for more of it. She does it again and sparks light up his spine. His body stretches under her, throat rumbling with wordless satisfaction. He twitches his hips up and doesn’t even realise how tightly he’s holding onto her as he burrows against her through the pyjamas. 

‘Sephiroth,’ she sighs, the syllables dropping disjointedly from her mouth. He can’t pinpoint the emotion in her voice. She sounds… scared, perhaps? But then she pulls out of his arms and sits up, tugging the damned pyjama top right over her head. He watches how her bare skin stretches in the moonlight, pale and smooth as milk. She isn’t scared at all. Maybe he’s just been projecting his own fear. Then she leans down and slides all that naked skin against him and his mind goes blank. There’s too much of her to feel. He doesn’t have enough hands. Enough skin. Her body is a warm lake enveloping him, pulling him down to the bottom and he closes his eyes as he lets his last breath escape him.   

There’s a moment where she grinds harder against his cock and her mouth is against his ear, whining and gasping and he should know what’s happening, he’s heard about this, only it takes him a full minute to realise that she _isn’t_ in fact having a heart attack. She grows limp in his arms and he’s still vaguely wondering whether she needs medical attention when she slides off of him, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling as she recuperates. Her thighs and stomach twitch as she comes down from the climax and she looks so adorably delicate with her flushed cheeks and her open hands.

‘Are you alright?’ he murmurs.

For all response she takes his wrist and guides his hand down to the waistband of her pyjama bottoms. His fingers dither for a moment, sliding along the inside of the waistband without going further. Having access to this – to her entire body like this – it feels strangely forbidden, like he’s waiting to be scolded for going too far.

‘You want me to take these off?’

 ‘No.’

‘What do you want me to do, then?’

She glares at him. Her fingers tighten around his wrist. ‘Just – please.’

 He hoists himself up onto one elbow and watches her face as he slowly pushes his hand under the waistband. His fingers card through her pubic hair and she’s panting in anticipation, each breath ending in a whimper. He finds the warm junction, slides a finger down into her wetness. The forbidden quality of it is making his blood sing. He explores the textures of her, sinking into a valley of wet silk and she’s digging her head back into the cushions.

‘Tell me what you want,’ he murmurs, more to hear her say it than because he can’t guess.

She slides her arms around his head, pulling him in and biting his lower lip.

‘One finger,’ she breathes against him.

He gives her two. The feeling of her around his fingers, tight and hot and sucking him further inside – he kisses her hard, swallowing her moans as he presses his knuckles against her. She’s pulsing around him rhythmically, muscles closing over his fingers and he only has to imagine how that would feel around his cock to approach his own peak. He pulls out of her, concentrating on keeping his orgasm back. She watches him as he breathes slowly in and out. 

‘We can stop if this is too much,’ she teases, and he glares at her, mako eyes glowing. Then her hand is travelling down the flat plain of his stomach, playing along the deep line of his hipbone. He waits for it, lower belly tensing. She cups him lightly through his pants and it’s all he can do to refrain from bucking his hips against her. She takes her sweet time, running a finger down the throbbing length of him and he’s sighing against her neck, fingers tangling in her chestnut coils.

When her hand finally closes tight around his girth, his mouth opens but no sound comes out. His mind is full of white noise. She pulls slightly and it’s like her fingers are dragging up his entire nervous system. His hips move by themselves as her hand glides and squeezes. He can only watch the dancing lights behind his eyelids as he contains himself, fingers cupping her breasts, lips skimming her neck. Then she’s tugging at his pants, pulling the cotton down his thighs and she grasps him again, skin on skin. She moves up and down more decisively and he all but loses his mind. After a few minutes he’s gasping incoherently against her neck, _yes_ and _faster_ and _Gaia, this, keep going_ as she rubs his velvety foreskin over the crown of his cock, flicks her thumb against the frenulum, covers her fingers in his pearly pre-cum until she’s slipping and sliding up and down and his hips are following every movement.

   He grabs her wrist to make her stop and she feels him throbbing as he keeps the climax contained. Then he’s climbed on top of her, biting down on her neck as retribution. His cock traces a wet path over her belly and there’s a struggle as both of them tug their remaining clothes off without moving too far from each other. Once it’s done he fits himself between her legs as naturally as anything and she drags her wetness up the length of him, mingling their juices as they kiss and bite at each other’s mouths.

‘We can stop if this is too much for you,’ he teases her, and she gives a strangled whimper, hands cupping his firm backside as though she could pull him inside like that.  She angles her hips, pressing her entrance against the head of his cock in a very deliberate demand. But he’s still caught up in self-defiance and some vestige of fear and he makes her wait, makes them both wait at the cusp of penetration, pushing just a little inside before retreating again. His heart is pounding as hard as if he were faced by some terrifying beast and he rubs his jaw against hers for a moment, breathing her in, trying to remind himself that this is safe. She’s safe. She’s chosen him, they chose each other and nothing about this is going to hurt him. He’s in control.

   He looks down at her face. Her green eyes are dewy with pleasure, her lips raw and swollen. She smiles up at him, hands come up to smooth stray hairs away from his eyes. She’s so beautiful. And she’s all his. Right here, right now.

He pushes inside her and her eyes squeeze shut. He knocks his forehead against hers as he tunnels deep inside her, feeling her closing all around him. Her thighs are slick with their juices and he’s sliding against her as he thrusts again. It doesn’t take much more than that. His breath hitches as the orgasm ravages his body, searing through each corded muscle and climbing up his spine. She locks her arms around his neck as he thrusts deep, cock pulsing inside her and she’s sighing sweetly against his ear as she takes it.  

To her surprise, he doesn’t stop. She looks a little confused as he keeps going even as the added lubrication spreads hotly down her thighs.

‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘You just – you’re not stopping?’

He stills. ‘Why? Do you want me to?’

She just laughs, drunk with endorphins as she pulls him closer. ‘Don’t you dare.’

 

Aeris had always thought she had stamina, but she hadn’t quite been prepared for this. Clear morning sunlight is drifting through the window when she finally asks him to stop. She’s raw and puffy and red all over and the sheets are soaked with sweat and their combined wetness. He offers to cure her but she refuses, wanting to savour the aftermath of him, how she can still feel him all over her skin and inside her. They lie facing each other for a long time after they stop, breathing softly in the morning light. She feasts her eyes on the sight of him; his face is flushed, eyes just as heavy-lidded and zoned out as hers must be. His ponytail has loosened, stray hairs sticking to his cheeks and neck with the sweat. She can see purple bruises on his neck, red nail-marks down his body, even a few spots of blood here and there. If he looks that battered then she can only wonder what kind of mess he’s looking at.

He rubs a thumb against her cheek as they stare at each other with all the gooeyness of two people who’ve just spent five hours fucking. The stillness is so comfortable. She smiles as she remembers something he said on his first day.

‘Perks, huh,’ she manages to comment. He raises an eyebrow and has the energy to laugh.

‘You could say that.’

‘For a first time I’d say you did pretty well.’

‘Oh? Am I being evaluated?’

Aeris giggles. ‘Let’s not pretend you aren’t evaluating me, too.’

His thumb finds her lips. ‘I have no basis of comparison or quality checklist against which I could possibly evaluate you,’ he says. ‘And I would have no desire to do so even if I did. You gave yourself to me. There’s no evaluating something like that.’

A smile stretches Aeris’ lips as she lets his words fan the fire in her body. She isn’t even sure if she can still call this a crush. If he keeps saying stuff like _that_ then it definitely won’t remain a crush. She raises her chin, kisses his shiny, bitten lips.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I guess I’ve had the kind of experience with men that makes me a bit… cynical about these things.’

Sephiroth smiles back at her, lacing his fingers through hers on the mattress.

‘And here I was, thinking I was the one who was learning about trust,’ he muses.

‘Hey, it’s more difficult with people. You said it yourself. Sometimes people’s actions can be misleading. You feel one thing, the other person feels another thing, and the difference is never really communicated.’

‘And how do you feel about this?’

The question is quiet. Hopeful. She looks at his glowing eyes and breathes out, trying to get rid of the theatrics so that she can find her own truth.

‘Good,’ she finally admits. ‘Really good.’

He smiles again. ‘I feel the same.’

He kisses her forehead, and they hold each other, hands slipping over sweaty skin. Then Aeris shivers as she snuggles against him, and Sephiroth looks over his shoulder at the cold grey stove.

‘Not that I don’t want to stay in bed all day,’ he rumbles, ‘but we’re going to freeze if we don’t revive the fire.’

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- About the smut: when writing het sex I tend to use the convenient headcanon that excessive Mako treatment makes Soldiers infertile and invulnerable to STDs while they're on it, and that this is pretty common knowledge to civilians. Hence plunging headfirst into it instead of going into all that safe sex jazz beforehand. That's in another fic. :'D  
> \- The lifestream influence is based on Cloud and Tifa's mental-throwback spiel in the OG.


	8. Chapter 8

*

It’s difficult to start the day when Aeris is walking around in lingerie that is _far_ too nice to have been brought without a purpose, and Sephiroth is grabbing her around the waist at every opportunity and demanding attention. He seems particularly curious about how her body reacts to his touch now that he feels confident enough to act on impulse. They finally manage to get some food in them and mull over which territories to explore on the map. They tack up their chocobos and spend the afternoon battling a growing snowfall as they search for wild birds. They do end up coming across a few wayward birds travelling in small groups, surrounded by wolves and other bizarre monsters. Aeris inspects the chocobos carefully after they fight off the guardians with fire spells. She checks wingspans, opens beaks, feels down the legs. None of them fit the criteria. Sephiroth marks the areas they've explored on the map as the sun sinks, and just when they’re turning back to make the journey home they hear a chocobo shriek close by, echoing in the white silence.

They race down snowy slopes towards the sound, their birds holding out their wings as they sprint. There in the woods ahead, a sumptuous yellow chocobo is pecking at its guardians. The misshaped white rabbits cower under the blows of the bird’s beak. Sephiroth and Aeris dismount at a careful distance, tying their birds to a pine tree before beginning their approach. Aeris goes directly towards it while Sephiroth skirts around to come up behind it. In minutes, the huge rabbits and their abnormally sharp teeth have turned to roasted lumps, and the chocobo is darting left and right as it watches the humans bear down on it. Aeris expertly chucks a loop of rope around its neck before it can run very far, and she begins the dance. Sephiroth jogs up to her and she hands the rope to him once he’s next to her.

‘You’ve watched me do this plenty of times – want to try?’

He takes it, and she hardly even has to direct his steps as he shows the chocobo that he’s a worthy leader. Soon, the chocobo is standing still and lowering its head in a sign of submission. Sephiroth is looking ever so slightly smug as he rubs its downy neck. He loosens the slipknot while Aeris does her checks. When their eyes meet he can’t help cocking an eyebrow.

‘You’re good at these, aren’t you?’ he comments, hooking a thumb in the knot.

Aeris hears his implication loud and clear: _maybe this is something we could try?_

She smirks and says, ‘Yes, I am.’ _You bet we can, except you’re the one who’s getting it._

She opens the bird’s wing, checking the length and colour of the feathers.

‘Slipknots can be dangerous,’ she comments off-handedly. ‘Left too long, it cuts off blood circulation the more the animal struggles against it.’

‘I know,’ he replies in a silky tone. ‘I’ve tied my fair share of knots.’

She glances at him over the wing she’s handling. _You’re really asking for it, aren’t you?_

He bites his lower lip. _What if I am?_

Arousal steams up her body. Aeris ploughs through her checks without another look in his direction. The wingspan is promising. She opens the bird’s beak, sees the delicately streamlined build of it. Its eyes are almond-shaped, and the legs are just as muscular as expected. She smiles up at Sephiroth.

‘I think we found one!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We’d have to see how fast he can run. Wonderful chocobos have a pretty high racing capacity even before any training.’

They lead the potential bird back to their chocobos, Aeris holding its lead rope as she gets up on Mako. They find a stretch of snow between two wooded areas, and start galloping. Six leaps ahead, and Aeris struggles to keep up. They’re not at their maximum capacity, but they’re already going quite fast and the chocobo is surprisingly matching their speed. Aeris laughs aloud as the cold wind chafes her cheeks – she keeps her eyes trained on Sephiroth’s whipping hair, the way he’s leaning over Six while she plummets ahead. They’ve done it.

*

Once it’s settled at the cabin with the other birds and the stove is glowing with warm embers, the sky is a mesmerizing shade of pink. Sephiroth proposes to celebrate by going up the mountain.

‘You wanted to know about the settlements around here,’ he reminds her. ‘Icicle Inn is by far the most hospitable.’

Aeris doesn’t need to be persuaded. He takes her up in their airship, and she looks down at the conglomerate of wooden chalets as they land the airship a little way away from town. Something about the place feels so… homey. Perhaps it’s all the wood and the fact that there are trees all around and a glacier at their doorstep – they’re snuggled in a crook of the mountain, at one with their surroundings. Sephiroth leads the way as they enter the town. The streets are bursting with life. Children chuck snowballs and hold hot waffles in gloved hands and grumble while their parents kneel down to straight their furry hats. Teenagers swagger around with surfboards and skis balanced on their shoulders, shoes clunking on snowy pavement. Sephiroth keeps having to haul Aeris out of the way of passing chocobo-drawn chariots, and they watch the snow-white chocobos merrily trotting past, bells jingling on their tack. They walk past a line of quaint little shops with wooden facades, and Aeris holds onto Sephiroth’s arm when she sees a little girl with long chestnut hair running ahead of them. A man turns around, and Aeris’ eyes bounce from the black hair to the glasses, the ribbed jumper and the friendly smile. He bends to pick the little girl up and Aeris doesn’t understand why she feels so sad.

They pass a steaming waffle stand and for a moment the smell of sweet batter helps to bring her back to a happier state. Sephiroth notices how she watches the waffle maker sprinkle icing sugar over his current batch. He pulls her closer.

‘I was thinking I could take you somewhere a little fancier than a waffle stand.’

‘Well, I’m a pretty simple girl,’ Aeris says dreamily as the waffle maker lathers chocolate and rainbow sprinkles onto another batch.

‘We can always come back here for dessert.’

He steers her away with much difficulty, stopping her in front of a luxurious clothes shop. There are gowns in the windows, mannequins decked in fur shrugs and brocade fabrics.

‘There’s a certain dress code for the place I’m thinking about,’ Sephiroth tells her as he slips a wad of cash into her hand. ‘I don’t think they’d let us in with our mud-covered trousers. Go and find something.’

‘What?’ She looks up at him. ‘But what about you?’

‘I’m going to make reservations. I’ll meet you in here.’

He goes off, glancing over his shoulder at her with a suspicious glint in his eye. Aeris twists her mouth to stop from smiling, and charges into the shop.

 

When he comes back, the shop assistants are all over Aeris. There are discarded dresses over every available seat, and the other customers are grumbling into the clothes racks as Aeris laughs and makes small talk with the assistants. She’s standing front of a mirror in a backless red dress that perfectly moulds her backside and thighs before streaming down to her ankles. Her hair is coiled over one shoulder in a thick, complicated braid stuck through with jewels. Sephiroth’s eyes glaze over as they travel down the bare length of her back, stopping on that mole he remembers kissing last night. She has taste, there’s no doubt about it. He strides in after wiping his snow-covered boots as thoroughly as possible, and Aeris turns around when she sees him approaching in the mirror.

‘What do you think?’ she asks with the kind of smile that tells him she knows _exactly_ what he’s about to say.

‘I think your tastes aren’t quite as simple as you mentioned,’ he teases her as he stands behind the assistants. They seem to remember their duties – two of them scamper back to the register while one remains to close the sale.

‘Are you complaining?’ Aeris asks, feigning sadness, so he cocks an eyebrow.

‘Far from it.’

Her smile comes whizzing back. ‘I found something for you, too.’

She holds out a long pale arm. Sephiroth has to make a conscious effort to look away from her and at the chair she’s pointing towards. There’s a suit there, crisp and black, and a red shirt to go underneath. Not bad. He goes to check the sizes.

‘You’ve got a good eye,’ he mutters after finding the correct sizes on everything.

‘I’ve had quite a few occasions to look at you,’ Aeris retorts, and he smirks at her as he goes to the changing rooms.

‘I hadn’t noticed at all.’

 

Aeris has been taken to fancy restaurants before. By Tseng, mostly. But none of them compare to this. For one, there is snow outside – there are foreign streets and mountains and something that makes her feel more at home than she’s ever felt. Then, there's man across the table from her who is vastly different. Tseng has always known exactly how to treat a woman he's interested in, but here Sephiroth is clearly trying to make an effort, emulating what he understands to be the _appropriate behaviour_ when trying to show a woman that he cares. It's very sweet. Aeris wholly prefers this - she doesn't quite know what the hell she's doing either, so she feels much more comfortable sitting across from someone who's on the same wavelength.

There is a giant fireplace right behind them and everything is wooden and the smell of potatoes and cheese and roasted meat is filling her nostrils. It might be fancy but the idea of gastronomy up here clearly isn’t the same as in Midgar – they still believe in huge plate-loads and extra side-dishes and actual nutritious food even if they deliver with more decorum.  Aeris is beginning to think that maybe she’s a little overdressed for a place like this, but seeing how Sephiroth can hardly take his eyes off her, it’s worth it. They share a pot of fondue between them, dipping squares of toasted bread into hot melted cheese, and they’re too busy battling long strings of cheese away from metal stirrers and laughing at each other’s clumsiness to really indulge in much seduction. Though there _is_ something weirdly erotic about how Sephiroth sucks his fingers and hooks wayward strings with his tongue. The fondue is mixed with quite a bit of white wine, and as Sephiroth orders large glasses for both of them as well, they’re both a little hot and tipsy by the end of the meal. While they’re finishing the wine Aeris rubs a foot against his leg under the table and the heat rises.

‘Shall we forgo the dessert?’ Sephiroth asks, eyes darkening as she drags her foot up his calf.

‘You promised me,’ Aeris insists, her cheeks red. He is easily persuaded.

Minutes later they’re walking down the snowy street, bundled up in their cloaks, Aeris munching on a waffle with far too many toppings. The streetlights glint on the sugar around her mouth, and Sephiroth doesn’t say anything about it, content to just grin to himself and guide her through town. Once she’s down to licking sprinkles from her fingers, they’ve wandered into the residential area where the famous Inn stands, the one that gave the town its name. There’s a long history there but they decide the alleyway beside it is far more interesting. Sephiroth drags her into the darkness to kiss the sugar from her lips.

Aeris clings to him and opens her mouth, moaning softly as his tongue brushes hers. She kisses him back just as hard, and then slowly relaxes. He notices that her eyes are open, glittering as they catch the streetlight. She breaks away, looking over his shoulder at the street they just left.

‘What is it?’ Sephiroth murmurs.

‘I don’t know. It’s just…’

She takes his hand and pulls him out onto the street. There’s a house ahead, half buried in snow. It looks abandoned. Aeris walks up to the doorstep, then kneels down, placing her hand on the snowy concrete. Again, the sadness wells up inside her inexplicably.

‘Anyone you knew?’ Sephiroth asks her, and she shakes her head.

‘I don’t know. It just feels so familiar.’ She gets up again, glancing towards one of the frosty windows.

Sephiroth stops a passerby. ‘Excuse me. Do you know who lives here?’

The old man shakes his head at him. ‘Bad business,’ he grumbles into his beard. ‘Nobody’s lived there for a good twenty years, now. Council’s been meaning to tear it down but there’s apparently still family out there who can claim it. There’s a set number of years to wait before action can be taken but nobody believes they’ll ever come back.’

He nods at the both of them before heading off again. Aeris winds her arms around Sephiroth’s, pressing herself against him.

‘Let’s go,’ she says.

               *

She’s somewhat subdued until they’re back in the warmth of the cabin. She shrugs off her cloak and he runs a finger down her naked back and she looks up at him with sullen arousal. It takes some time before he has her smiling again. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, he’s kneeling between her legs, and she isn’t wearing anything under her tights so he’s kissing her through the nylon, pressing heat and wetness against her with his tongue. She’s panting and laughing as she closes her thighs around him. Then he rips a hole through the tights so she can feel his naked lips and the panting turns to moans. When she pulls him up to kiss his juice-slick mouth he whispers to keep the dress on, and they pull it up to her waist so that he can sink into her.

She’s flushed and hardly conscious when he decides to stop and reaches for the crumpled blazer on the floor. Groggily she sits up to watch him take something out of the inside pocket, the firelight glowing on his naked body. Sephiroth straightens up with a glittery pouch in his hand. Aeris just about has the energy to smile as he opens it, taking out a delicate golden chain with a jewel hanging from it. It’s pale green jade encased in a swirl of gold. She bites her lip, heart galloping as he reaches to clasp it around her neck.

‘In the dream,' he purrs, 'when the woman gave you that necklace, you looked like a Cetran princess.’

Aeris pulls him in to kiss him, frowning as a lump forms in her throat. He leans forwards and kisses her neck just below her ear before adding, ‘When we’re here like this, you look like a queen.’

She wraps her thighs around his waist and kisses him until neither of them have any breath left. Then the dress finally comes off, and the night stretches on into bliss.

 *

 The next morning is very rough. And very late. In fact it’s no longer morning at all when they wake up. The bright light assaults Aeris’ eyes when she surfaces, holding a hand up to shield herself. The chocobos are chirping and rustling around in the hay and she takes a minute to figure out what position her body is in. Her head is at the wrong end of the bed, and one of her arms is hanging down the side, hand on the floor. She can’t feel it. Groaning, she pulls it up and winces as the blood rushes back into it. Sephiroth is lying on his back next to her, head turned away from her, his loose hair curling over the bed and streaming down to the floor. She watches his naked chest rise and fall slowly in the white light of day. Then she winds an arm around him, presses her body along the length of his and hooks a leg over his hips. His breath hitches, and he makes a soft sleepy sound as he wakes up.

‘Time to go home,’ Aeris says in a sing-song voice. He turns his head towards her, eyes blinking blearily open.

‘I thought we were staying up here,’ he mutters. His husky morning voice is hardly comprehensible. He mumbles something about a _base of operations_ and she laughs.

‘I’d love to, but someone has to claim the bounty on that bird.’

 

She tries valiantly to keep up the cheer as they pack up, hiding her disappointment that their stay has come to an end. It hardly even feels like three days and she keeps reminding herself that he isn’t just going to run back to Midgar and forget all about her. Surely. They lead the birds into the airship, coddling Six as before. Once the cabin is locked up and they’re in the air, Aeris sits next to Sephiroth in the cockpit, watching the world scroll past. He keeps stealing glances at her, appreciating the wonder in her eyes before it turns to something less cheerful.

He reaches over and slides a hand over her thigh.

‘Aeris.’

She meets his eyes, forcing another smile.

‘This isn’t the last time I take you up here,’ he tells her firmly. Her smile settles into a more genuine expression, so he looks ahead again and adds, ‘I’m choosing our next destination, though. Somewhere _warm_.’

She threads her fingers through his and holds him so tight that his knuckles go white. He doesn’t seem to mind.

 

                *

The stable hands make a big show of how proud they are of her when she leads the wonderful chocobo down the airship ramp. Bill insists on doing the paperwork and notifying Teioh, so they all relax around lunch in the farmhouse. All that’s left to do once the coffee pot is empty and the plates are wiped clean is to give Six back to Sephiroth, now that she’s officially ‘fixed’ her. His own vacation is fast approaching its end, too, so he’s run out of excuses to stay.

Sephiroth comes out of the farmhouse wearing the clothes he arrived in, and Aeris leads him down to Six’s stall without saying a word. He tacks Six up while Aeris talks to the bird, scrubbing her big shiny head. Six chirps and nudges her in return, sensing departure.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ Aeris mumbles to her.

‘You could always visit,’ Sephiroth says as he buckles up the girth.

She glares at him. ‘Sure. In Midgar. Hm.’

He affords her a small smile, before reaching to stroke Six’s neck. His fingers skim over Aeris’s in the downy feathers. Then he’s holding her hand, and in the next few seconds she’s wrapped up in his arms in a natural succession of movements.

‘When's your next vacation?’ she asks quietly. Her tone is defeated. It's clear that she's reached a state of acceptance that this is all it's ever going to be - this is all she can possibly hope for. It spreads an uncomfortable heat in his chest. She must've gotten used to steeling herself if she's this quick to discard any possibility for a deeper relationship.

He’s silent for a moment, lips brushing against her temple as he strokes her hair.

‘I’ll figure something out. Something more permanent.’

She lifts her head to look at him and he kisses her forehead. 

'Trust me.'

 

She watches him leave until he’s a speck on the horizon and the necklace has made a red imprint in the palm of her hand.

 

                *

The following week, Tseng comes to check up on her. He’s a bit more formal than usual. At first she thinks it’s because he’s still seeking forgiveness after his last visit, but he’s acting rather strange as she prepares their usual coffee in the kitchen.  

He gives her this look when she hands him his mug, so she finally asks, ‘ _What?_ ’

‘I should’ve known putting you two together would spell trouble,’ he mutters.

‘What? Who?’

‘You know damn well who.’ He takes an envelope out of his inside pocket and places it on the table. Then he knocks a finger against it a few times, as though wondering whether to give it to her. ‘He’s always had a bit of a strained relationship with ShinRa’s authority since the war. But most of the time, he eventually chooses to be cooperative. And then – he spends two weeks with you – _two weeks_ – and suddenly he’s never been so close to going rogue on us.’

A smile as bright as dawn breaks on Aeris’ face and Tseng shakes his head at her.

‘And of course, you react like this is good news. Of course.’

‘Give me that.’ She swipes at the letter, and he holds it out of her reach playfully. She gives a few more swipes until he finally relents, and she bites her lip as she holds it in her hands. It’s black, and her name and address are scrawled in golden ink on it.

 Tseng contemplates her for a moment, like he’s calculating how her and Sephiroth could possibly complement each other’s anarchist agendas quite so well. The conclusions he draws apparently amuse him, because he just smiles and shakes his head again.

Aeris looks up at him. ‘What _now_?’

He steps forwards. ‘I just hadn’t realised. How similar you both are.’ He places a hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. ‘Just know that I’ve always been your friend, Aeris. Just like I’ve always been his friend. And I plan for things to stay that way, whatever happens.’       

Aeris’ heart is pounding.

‘I really should read this letter,’ she says.

‘Yeah. You really should.’

He watches her scamper to the living room, digging a finger under the flap of the envelope. He sips his coffee, and smiles to himself as he watches the sunlight ripple over the dark surface.

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with me through this interminable fic! <3 Drop me a line if there's something in particular you liked!


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